Buttermilk Cornbread

Brown Sugar Kitchen

I've tried a lot of cornbread recipes over the years, and even cornbread mixes, and haven't found one I actually liked...until this one! I don't know what makes this recipe different; I used the same corn meal I've been using for a while, so it can't be that. The ingredients are pretty similar across most recipes, with buttermilk, flour, corn meal, salt, and leavening ingredients.

Some comments on the recipe (here: https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/buttermilk-cornbread-recipe-1937829) suggest that there's too much salt and too much baking powder in it, but I didn't think either of those were a problem at all. (As I've said, my kosher salt is less salty when measured by volume than some, and definitely don't use that much table salt here!) I've made it twice now, and both times it turned out great!

Whatever it is, this is now my go-to recipe for a savory cornbread. It has some sugar in it, but it's not really a sweet cornbread, so if you're looking for something cake-y, this isn't it. But if you want a nicely balanced cornbread flavor, this could be your favorite, too.

Captions

[00:00]: [Music]
[00:05]: hello and welcome to cooking books with
[00:07]: heather today
[00:08]: i'm going to be working from tonya
[00:10]: holland's brown sugar kitchen cookbook
[00:12]: and i'm going to be making buttermilk
[00:14]: cornbread
[00:15]: i have yet to find a cornbread that i
[00:17]: really love that i have made at home
[00:20]: i've liked it just fine at restaurants
[00:22]: and that kind of thing but i've not made
[00:24]: one that i like at home other people
[00:26]: like it just fine whatever so we'll see
[00:28]: how we like this one
[00:30]: there are a ton of ingredients i'm very
[00:32]: disorganized today
[00:34]: but i'm pretty sure i have everything i
[00:36]: need even something i don't need for
[00:38]: this recipe
[00:41]: so
[00:42]: pretty sure i have everything i need and
[00:44]: we're going to get started
[00:46]: um the one thing i want to tell you is
[00:48]: that i have my oven preheated to 425
[00:52]: degrees
[00:53]: and i have a 12 inch cast iron skillet
[00:56]: that i put in there um just a few
[00:58]: minutes ago
[00:60]: to heat up because that's we're gonna
[01:01]: cook this in so i'm not gonna do this in
[01:03]: the order that she says to do it just
[01:05]: because
[01:07]: i think i know better
[01:09]: not really but um i like to whisk up my
[01:13]: dry ingredients and i don't want to get
[01:14]: my whisk
[01:16]: wet with the wet ingredients first so
[01:17]: i'm gonna do the dry ingredients first
[01:19]: and then do the wet ingredients and then
[01:21]: combine them so
[01:22]: um
[01:23]: i'm going to add
[01:26]: flour
[01:27]: flour
[01:29]: i'm going to measure it i haven't met
[01:30]: pre-measured at this time so this will
[01:32]: take a little bit longer than it does
[01:34]: usually and
[01:36]: i'll show you how i measure flour
[01:38]: i don't remember where i learned this
[01:39]: but basically
[01:41]: i kind of scoop the flower sweep it into
[01:45]: my cup
[01:46]: and then i make sure that there are no
[01:48]: holes in it
[01:49]: and then i sweep
[01:52]: the
[01:53]: extra off the top
[01:55]: and that's how i measure flour and to
[01:57]: get a consistent result every time
[02:00]: so we have flour
[02:05]: i'm gonna put this back here because i'm
[02:07]: gonna eat it again for another recipe
[02:09]: i'm gonna need some cornmeal
[02:11]: um
[02:14]: if i normally cook for somebody who is
[02:16]: gluten intolerant i would
[02:19]: not do this but i don't so i'm not too
[02:21]: worried about that
[02:23]: cross-contamination and everything
[02:25]: i'm just going to do the same thing with
[02:27]: cornmeal
[02:33]: here we go
[02:38]: now we need to add our leavening
[02:39]: ingredients
[02:43]: we're going to add some
[02:45]: baking powder
[02:47]: quite a bit of baking powder actually
[02:60]: doing basically the same thing with the
[03:01]: baking powder except it has a nice
[03:02]: little built-in scrapy thing for me
[03:06]: and then
[03:07]: baking
[03:09]: soda not very much of that
[03:16]: comparatively
[03:21]: we need some kosher salt
[03:27]: we need
[03:33]: kosher salt
[03:35]: um and sugar
[03:38]: um
[03:42]: so sugar in cornbread is a
[03:47]: controversial topic but
[03:50]: i don't mind some sugar in my cornbread
[03:52]: but we're gonna do it because it's the
[03:53]: recipe
[03:55]: and because i don't mind it so
[03:58]: a little bit of sugar
[03:59]: well some sugar
[04:04]: and that's it for this
[04:06]: um
[04:08]: and i'm going to sort of whisk this
[04:10]: together just to sort of get everything
[04:13]: incorporated nicely and break up any
[04:15]: lumps
[04:19]: whisking kind of takes the place of
[04:21]: sifting your flour and other dry
[04:22]: ingredients so
[04:24]: i do that because i don't like to sift
[04:27]: all right so those are our dry
[04:30]: ingredients
[04:31]: and
[04:32]: now we have a slightly larger bowl
[04:35]: and
[04:36]: let me put these away since i've used
[04:38]: them
[04:41]: and we're going to put our wet
[04:44]: ingredients in here so we're going to
[04:46]: add
[04:47]: we have just
[04:48]: one egg
[04:53]: there we
[04:55]: go and like the recipe says we have
[04:58]: buttermilk
[05:00]: yes i have the right one
[05:03]: so i'm just going to
[05:07]: get the buttermilk out of my cup
[05:10]: and then
[05:13]: we're going to whisk this together
[05:15]: to break up the egg and all that
[05:19]: that's all we need the whisk for so i'm
[05:20]: going to put that
[05:26]: and now she says to
[05:28]: mix
[05:29]: the dry ingredients into the wet
[05:31]: ingredients with a wooden spoon
[05:34]: i prefer using um a silicone spatula but
[05:38]: the point is you don't want to whisk
[05:39]: these together you want to sort of
[05:41]: gently
[05:43]: mix them and not over mix them so that's
[05:46]: what we're going to do i think we're
[05:47]: going to dump it all in
[05:49]: and mix it up
[06:09]: there we go
[06:10]: so this is sort of just barely mixed
[06:14]: and now i'm going to add
[06:16]: quite a bit of melted butter
[06:20]: pre-melted it so it's not super hot
[06:22]: anymore but
[06:25]: it's also not room temperature
[06:27]: and we're going to
[06:29]: just stir this in
[06:43]: always messy
[06:47]: all right
[06:49]: so that is
[06:50]: pretty well stirred in
[06:52]: and that's our cornbread so now
[06:56]: um
[06:57]: we need to get our pan out of the oven
[07:00]: and
[07:01]: okay so another thing
[07:05]: [Music]
[07:07]: um there's an optional
[07:09]: there's an optional ingredient in this
[07:11]: recipe you can add some
[07:13]: cooked corn kernels we're not going to
[07:15]: do that i have some corn in the
[07:17]: refrigerator but i didn't want to bother
[07:18]: with cooking it and cutting off the cob
[07:20]: and
[07:23]: so we're not doing that today but now
[07:24]: we're going to get our skillet out of
[07:25]: the oven so i'm going to kind of prepare
[07:27]: a place here to put it where
[07:29]: the very hot skillet will not hopefully
[07:32]: burn me
[07:36]: so this is really hot 425 degrees but we
[07:39]: need to put
[07:41]: some more unsalted butter in here
[07:43]: and this is going to be all foamy as
[07:45]: soon as i drop it in
[07:47]: there we go
[07:54]: there we go
[07:56]: all i need to do with this is sort of
[07:58]: make sure that it
[07:60]: coats everywhere that there will be
[08:02]: cornbread
[08:04]: so it doesn't stick
[08:07]: and it gets it should get a nice crispy
[08:10]: crust
[08:19]: there we go
[08:22]: so that's
[08:23]: almost all melted
[08:25]: very hot
[08:28]: and all we're going to do now is i'm
[08:29]: going to use my
[08:32]: silicone spatula to dump all of this
[08:35]: into
[08:40]: the pan
[08:46]: get as much out as i can
[08:48]: there we go
[08:50]: and
[08:52]: um
[08:54]: kind of spread it until it's relatively
[08:56]: even
[08:58]: and we're gonna put it back in the oven
[09:01]: um
[09:02]: until it's brown on the edges and a
[09:03]: toothpick in the center comes out clean
[09:05]: she says 20 to 25 minutes so
[09:09]: that's pretty much it for this recipe
[09:11]: very quick to put together and not too
[09:14]: long to cook so we'll see you in 20 to
[09:16]: 25 minutes to see what it looks like
[09:18]: when it comes out
[09:28]: on this episode of cooking the books
[09:30]: with heather you watched me make
[09:31]: buttermilk cornbread from tonya
[09:33]: holland's brown sugar kitchen cookbook
[09:36]: um and i don't think i've made a lot a
[09:40]: lot of cornbread on this recipe i've
[09:41]: made the corn pone from
[09:44]: deep run roots which i'll include here
[09:46]: um but i have made cornbread throughout
[09:49]: my life from mixes
[09:51]: um from you know recipes i think i've
[09:53]: made the jennifer garner recipe
[09:56]: which was pretty good
[09:58]: but honestly i think this is my favorite
[10:01]: cornbread that i've ever made myself
[10:06]: it was really good i did not include the
[10:08]: fresh corn kernels which is an optional
[10:10]: ingredient which i would probably do the
[10:12]: next time
[10:14]: and i think that i would prefer it
[10:16]: slightly thicker so she requests a 12
[10:19]: inch cast iron pan
[10:22]: free to cook it in the oven
[10:23]: uh i would do it my 10 inch just to get
[10:26]: a little bit of a thicker
[10:27]: you know end product but
[10:30]: whatever it was delicious and it's not
[10:32]: that hard it's just you know
[10:35]: you heat up your pan
[10:37]: you mix a bunch of stuff you put it in
[10:39]: the pan
[10:40]: no big deal
[10:41]: can be ready um
[10:43]: for your dinner like 20 25 minutes this
[10:46]: is a really southern thing to to make
[10:49]: and have with dinner
[10:51]: a lot of the time so
[10:54]: um i will definitely be making this
[10:55]: again
[10:56]: and i hope you will try it and let me
[10:58]: know what you think
[10:60]: if you enjoyed watching me make this
[11:01]: give me a thumbs up hit the subscribe
[11:03]: button and come back and watch me make
[11:05]: something else next week
[11:07]: [Music]