Homemade Cornbread - Simply Made Recipes (2024)

FAQs

What does adding an extra egg to cornbread do? ›

Eggs are responsible for giving baked goods structure, which means the amount you use directly affects the resulting texture. Using too few eggs will make your desserts dense, but using too many will make them rubbery.

As for the best cornmeal for cornbread, either fine- or medium-grind cornmeal is a great choice. Medium-grind cornmeal will bring slightly more texture and grittiness to the batter, which you may or may not want (it's up to you!). You can use fine or medium cornmeal in these extra corny muffins.

Cornmeal gives cornbread its classic color and flavor, but too much can make your bread crumbly. Try replacing a little bit of cornmeal with flour. The specific measurements will depend on how much cornmeal and flour is in your recipe, but you should try to have more flour than cornmeal in your batter.

The thing that distinguishes Southern cornbread from, say Yankee cornbread, or any other cornbread one is likely to eat outside of the southern states, is that it is savory, not sweet, and it is made mostly with cornmeal.

Yes, but we recommend using an egg substitute, like applesauce. Eggs, or egg substitutes help add structure to the cornbread. Without an egg or substitute, the cornbread may crumble and fall apart easily.

There's a great divide between northern and southern versions of cornbread. The former uses sugar whereas what's termed “real cornbread” in the south, sugar is verboten. I favor southern style cornbread compared to the more cake-like versions up north. The kind of cornmeal you use adds further distinction.

Soaking the cornmeal in buttermilk for a few hours, or even overnight, tenderizes the large grains of cornmeal, making the bread more moist and tender. This step is optional, however, and the bread is still delicious without the soaking step.

A quick Google search will tell you that Southern cornbread is oftentimes devoid of any sugar, while its Northern counterpart is light, sweet, buttery and cakelike.

Note: We recommend allowing cornbread batter to sit for 10 to 15 minutes before baking, so if you prefer, you can delay heating the oven until you make the batter.

While oven is heating, melt the shortening in a cast iron skillet. Mix dry ingredients. Add eggs and milk and mix well with electric mixer. Pour melted shortening into batter and blend until smooth.

What did Native Americans call cornbread? ›

Among them was a version of Indian bread made of cornmeal, salt and water called pone or corn pone. The name came from the Algonquin word apan, meaning "baked." The Narragansett word for cornbread, nokechick, became no-cake and then hoe-cake.

Sugar in the cornbread interferes with the flavor of the vegetables. Don't put sugar in your cornbread! Traditional cornbread isn't sweet, but many favorite recipes have sugar in them.

For people who prefer cornbread without much sugar: Jiffy Corn Muffin Mix.

Eggs also contain a variety of proteins that create the structure of a cake, and when beaten, they can act as a leavening agent by adding air to the cake batter. However, if you add too many eggs to your cake batter, then your end result could be spongy, rubbery, or dense.

Eggs are a crucial ingredient. They provide the cakes with the structure to hold light bubbles. Eggs also give the batter additional, richer flavor from the yolk fat. If you add too many eggs, you'll have “pancakes” that look more like custard or crepes.

The air spaces are created by bubbles of gas (mostly carbon dioxide) produced within the batter during the baking process. Ingredients that produce these bubbles are called leavening agents. In "quick breads," which have no yeast (and don't require hours for dough to rise), the leavening agent is usually baking powder.