If you have been intimidated to make homemade cornbread, this episode is going to be for you!!! Learn how to make the perfect Buttermilk Cornbread that has a great flavor and texture. It isn’t overly dry, but also not overly cake-like.
Also, don’t miss the amazing honey butter at the end!
Transcript
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Intro: Welcome everybody to another episode of Let’s Make Dinner, your audio library of amazing dinner recipes you can always get on the table. I’m your host, Susie Weinrich.
Susie Weinrich: All right, we’re up for a little controversial recipe today. I had no idea how much controversy surrounded cornbread, but when I posted a recipe on Pinterest about cornbread, I got all sorts of comments. I am telling you. People feel very passionately about cornbread.
So what I’m going to say, the disclaimer for this episode is that this is my take on buttermilk cornbread. If you don’t like it, don’t make it, don’t shame me. We love it. But maybe you won’t love it. But I think it’s a perfect combination of corn flavor, cornbread texture, but still enough moisture so that the cornbread is tender and not dry and crumbly. So if that sounds good to you, then I highly recommend you try this buttermilk cornbread recipe.
We’re also going to make a delicious honey butter to go on the cornbread. So yummy. This is obviously not a full dinner, but it makes a great side dish for especially any soups in the fall. Like chili white chicken chili, even chicken noodle soup. Cornbread is wonderful as a side dish, kind of across the board there. It’s also great with a lot of grilled items. Maybe not burgers or things that are served on a bun, but something more like a barbecue grilled pork tenderloin, even ribs. It’s a great side dish for ribs.
Tips and Tricks: So let’s get into a couple tips and tricks and myths about cornbread. When I say myths, it’s not really myth, it’s just that there’s a lot of different takes on letting your batter rest. So when I read on the internet about letting your cornbread batter rest before you bake it, there’s all sorts of different reasons. You know, activating the baking soda. Letting the corn flour absorb the liquid. There’s something about air being added. People that say it helps the cornbread rise better, especially if you’re making muffins, then it will have a bigger crown. I have found that this recipe works just fine without letting the batter rest, but if you want to let the batter rest, they recommend like 15 to 20 minutes, and then pour it in the pan and bake it. But I find that it’s completely fine just as it is.
In this recipe, we’re using buttermilk as part of the liquid for the mixture. The buttermilk is going to serve two purposes. Obviously, as the wet ingredient that’s mixing into the cornbread batter. Then, it’s also considered an acid, so it’s going to activate your baking powder, which is the difference between baking soda and baking powder. Baking soda is already activated, it doesn’t need that activator. Baking powder needs an acidic activator to help it work.
Otherwise, everything is pretty much straightforward for this recipe. You will need a nine inch round baking pan or dish to make this buttermilk cornbread. You could also use a nine inch round cast iron skillet, which would work here as well.
Cornbread Recipe: Let’s get into making the full recipe for buttermilk cornbread. It’s actually pretty easy. So you’re going to preheat your oven to 400 degrees. Then you’re going to prep a 9 inch round pan by spraying it with non-stick spray. In a large bowl, you’re going to stir together the dry ingredients, which is going to be one and a half cups of medium grind cornmeal, one cup of all purpose flour, and three tablespoons of sugar. That’s going to add just enough sweetness to enhance the flavor, but not so sweet that it tastes like cake instead of cornbread. One teaspoon of baking powder, one teaspoon of baking soda, and one and a half teaspoons of kosher salt. Just stir that all together. Then you’re going to whisk together the wet ingredients. I like to do this in my, I have a large four cup Pyrex liquid measuring cup and this works perfect for this. So you’re going to measure together one and a half cups of buttermilk, two large eggs, and a quarter cup of vegetable oil. Whisk that all together so that the eggs incorporate into the liquid. Then what you’re going to do is you’re going to stir the wet mixture into the dry mixture. So pour that wet mixture right into the dry mixture and just stir until everything is wet. Don’t over mix your batter.
Now at this point, you can let it sit. Or, you can pour it right into your 9 inch round prepared baking dish, and then bake it at 400 degrees for about 30 to 35 minutes. Your cornbread is ready. Let it rest for 5 to 10 minutes, and then you can cut it into wedges, like pie wedges, and serve it up.
We’re going to take it to the next level, and we’re going to make a little bit of homemade honey butter to go with that cornbread. Super duper easy. You only need three ingredients to make this honey butter. I want to talk about just a couple of the ingredients. With this recipe, we are using salted butter. I do not believe in unsalted butter. I can’t believe I admitted that in public. Unsalted butter is basically like grease to me. It doesn’t taste like anything. You need that salt in there to give that butter its sweet, creamy flavor. So please use salted butter here.
Then the recipe calls for a flake sea salt, like Maldon sea salt. If you don’t want to use that, then if you’re going to use just a kosher salt, you’re going to want to start with about a quarter teaspoon and then add more to taste. That flake sea salt is a little bit more delicate than some other salts, so we can add a little bit more. It adds, oh my gosh, it adds the most beautiful little texture in your honey butter. So if you can, get that flake sea salt. You will not be disappointed.
Alright, to make your honey butter, in a small bowl with a spoon or a spatula, you’re going to mix together that room temperature salted butter. It’s 12 tablespoons of salted butter, two and a half tablespoons of a good quality honey, and three quarters teaspoon of flake sea salt.
You’re just going to whip it together. Now, if you want to use a handheld mixer, or you want to use your stand mixer, you can absolutely do that. It’s not totally necessary to get all that equipment out. You can just do it with a spoon or a spatula, promise. Now, what I like to do is once it’s completely incorporated and mixed together, I like to put it in a little ramekin and then I sprinkle a little bit of extra flake salt on top and I drizzle a little extra honey over the top and then serve it at room temperature so it’s nice and spreadable with cornbread, muffins, waffles, whatever needs a little bit of sweet butter. A little sweet and salty and creamy. It’s just the perfect mixture. So this can be stored for a few days in a covered container at room temp, but to keep it longer, like up to two weeks, three weeks, you want to keep it in the fridge and then pull it out like an hour before you need it to soften it up just a little bit.
All right, so that does it for the full episode today on cornbread and honey butter. If you are enjoying these episodes, I would love to have you subscribe or follow on your preferred podcast player. As a newer show, it just helps us to be shown to new listeners.
Outro: So until next time, I hope this episode of Let’s Make Dinner makes your dinner time a little easier. See ya!
Double Dip: Alright guys, now it’s time for your double dip. Thank you so much for sticking around. Every week, I will share the next week’s recipe that we’re making, so that if you do enjoy cooking along and you want to make the new recipe, you can make sure that you have all of the ingredients you need to cook along with me.
So next week, we are making one of our very favorite side dishes that we have all the time here. It’s a highly requested recipe from my kids. We are making crispy oven potatoes. So you don’t need much to make these. Basically, what you’re going to need are these really tiny potatoes. Sometimes they actually are called tiny potatoes. They will be smaller than a ping pong ball. Really, really tiny. Usually they come bagged in your grocery store. So they’ll be in a branded bag of some sort.
So you’ll need one pound of tiny Yukon gold potatoes, three tablespoons of olive oil or extra virgin olive oil. Then three quarters teaspoon of kosher salt and one teaspoon dried oregano. You’ll also want to make sure that you have a cast iron skillet to cook these in. So I hope you will join me then and make these delicious little crispy potatoes and I hope that you guys all have a wonderful week ahead.
Recipes Mentioned
- Buttermilk Cornbread
- Honey Butter
- Chili
- Turkey Chili
- White Chicken Chili
- Chicken Noodle Soup
- Ribs
- BBQ Pork Tenderloin
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