I have such fond memories of cornbread from my childhood where my adorable dad would take half an afternoon to meticulously and carefully make a perfect pan of his famous cornbread. This was only one of two recipes I can ever remember him making, but he really enjoyed making this for our family. Of course we had it often when we would have a meal like chili or stew, but our favorite way to eat it was actually for breakfast the next morning.

I think it is a Southern thing, but you crumble a square of cornbread into a bowl, pour a spoonful of sugar over it and cover with milk. It might sound strange, but it is SO good! I can attest to that because I just had another bowl of this last night, so I know it wasn’t just something I only enjoyed as a child. You’ll have to let me know if you also grew up on this leftover cornbread breakfast :)

Anyway, my sister was just telling me that she has found the softest, most moist and fluffy cornbread and it is because there is a secret ingredient! This mysterious, all-important ingredient is actually a yellow cake mix. You simply mix together a yellow cake mix, a box of the Jiffy corn muffin mix, a few other ingredients and pop it into the oven for the most heavenly cornbread ever! The corn meal tastes quite fine, not coarse--it is just the right amount of corn for me. Of course the cake mix sweetens the whole thing and naturally makes it taste more cake-like.

I just love it with a good size pat of butter on it when it is still warm right out of the oven, but my sister loves to make honey butter with it. She said her secret to making honey butter turn out perfectly is to whip the honey in a Bosch or KitchenAid stand mixer for 5 minutes until the honey is whipped and quite fluffy. Then you can add in your room temperature butter to whip until you have a nice, pretty solid honey butter, that isn’t runny the way it turns out if you use regular honey straight from the cupboard, rather than whipping it first. 

My family gobbled that big Pyrex dish of cornbread up within a couple hours! I seriously think I am going to have to make two pans of it each time I make it. Especially so I can have my favorite nostalgic breakfast :)

Perhaps it’s recency bias, but I feel I have completely underutilized cornbread as a perfectly great side to almost any hearty meal. I almost always make garlic bread, but cornbread is more than just for chili. I think it should be made as often as once a month around here, instead of once a year! I just made it to go with one of my favorite chicken casseroles and it was wonderful.

Here is this amazing recipe for the world’s best cornbread! No big deal ;)



Add Recipe to Cook'n