This cast iron skillet cornbread recipe is the perfect accompaniment to just about any meal you put on your table year round. (And it goes especially well with black-eyed peas or pinto beans.) It’s soft, moist, buttery, and only slightly sweetened.
Cornbread was a regular fixture in my dinner meals growing up, but isn’t something I’ve made a whole lot of being a single adult. Yet after having made a couple of batches to perfect this recipe, that might be changing.
The ingredients are pretty simple: cornmeal, flour, salt, baking powder, sugar, milk, butter, and eggs. You probably have most (if not all) of these ingredients in your kitchen right now. My mom always used white cornmeal in her cornbread recipe, but yellow seems to be much more commonly available, which is what I’ve used here. Though I’m sure you could swap the two in this recipe as long as it’s a similar coarseness.
One point of contention among the cornbread contingency is whether or not sugar should be included in cornbread. I’ve had those versions that taste more like cake than anything else and am definitely not recommending you serve dessert with your bowl of chili, but I do think a little bit of sugar goes a long way. I tried this with just a couple spoonfuls of sugar and also without, and I must say that I enjoyed the first one better. But as always, if you really want to leave the sugar out, it’s your kitchen and you can do whatever you want.
The last key to this recipe is to melt the butter in the cast iron skillet while you’re preheating the oven. (Just keep an eye on it so that the butter doesn’t burn. But if it gets brown, then that’s A-ok.) This helps to produce a nice golden crust on the bottom of the cornbread. And if you don’t have a cast iron skillet, a round (or square) cake pan will do.
Skillet Cornbread Recipe
This cast iron skillet cornbread recipe is soft, buttery, moist, and only slightly sweetened. It's the perfect accompaniment for any meal.
Ingredients
- 6 tablespoons unsalted butter
- 1 1/4 cups fine ground cornmeal
- 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
- 2 tablespoons sugar
- 1 tablespoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 egg
- 1 cup milk
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 400˚F. Put the butter in a 10-inch cast iron skillet (or other similarly sized pan) and place in the oven to melt while the oven preheats.
- Meanwhile, add the cornmeal, flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt to a bowl and give it a stir. Add the egg and milk to the dry ingredients and mix until fully combined.
- Once the butter has melted and the oven is preheated, removed the skillet from the oven, add the melted butter to the cornbread batter and stir until fully incorporated. (I like to use a whisk for this, and be sure not to spill any of the hot melted butter.)
- Transfer the batter back into the preheated skillet and bake in the oven until firm to the touch or a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean, about 20 minutes. Slice and serve.
I’ve never made cornbread before. This recipe was ao easy to follow and the cornbread is so delicious. I had to exercise self-restraint not to eat the whole thing in one go. Thank you for sharing.
Lovely cornbread recipe!!!
I made this today to go along with some vegetable beef soup and I found that the cornbread was very dry. I usually make sweetened cornbread muffins but I wanted to try something different and this recipe looked good. This was a bit too dry for my taste. I don’t think I will be making this recipe again.
It’s always turned out perfect for me. Maybe you baked it too long or your oven runs hot? Or it could be we just have different tastes when it comes to cornbread.
In re cornbread recipe, incorporate vanilla pudding instead of sugar to a cheive a more smooth and moist cornbread.