Golden Cornbread

Do you like cornbread? I do. I really, really do. In fact, I’m not sure I can tell you exactly how much I love it. That’s how much I love it.

I do not, however, like dry cornbread. Who does? Raise your hand. (This is not the recipe for you. Head elsewhere please.)

We like sweet cornbread in our house. Especially my husband, a Brazilian-American, who likes his cornbread to be more like cake. I say it depends on the purpose of the cornbread. (I really do like it to taste like cake sometimes, too.)

As I do all the time, I played around with my favorite recipe from Cooks’ Illustrated and came up with (what I think) is pretty darn good cornbread. It’s moist and eggy, just sweet enough, and perfect with a bowl of chili.

Golden Cornbread
adapted from Cooks’ Illustrated (see original recipe here)

Ingredients:
8 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
5 large eggs
1 1/3 cups buttermilk
1 1/3 cups whole milk
2 cups yellow cornmeal, preferably stone ground
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/4-1/2 cup granulated sugar (use less if you don’t like it as sweet)
4 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons salt

Instructions:
Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Grease a 9″ by 13″ glass baking pan.

Whisk dry ingredients together in a large mixing bowl. Set aside.

Whisk the eggs, buttermilk, and milk together in another bowl. Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients. Add the egg-milk mixture to the dry ingredients. Whisk to combine, leaving some lumps and streaks of dry ingredients. Using a large silicone spatula, fold in the melted butter. Mix well. Some small lumps may remain.

Pour the batter into the greased pan, smoothing the batter to the edges. Bake for about 35-40 minutes. (Start checking it at 30 just to make sure…) The top will be golden brown and a toothpick inserted into the center should come out clean.

Let cool for about 10 minutes before serving.