Welcome Back to Love Your Food: A Simple Recipe for Cornbread

After our successful attempt at making cornbread dressing last week, we're back with an even simpler recipe that's perfect for any occasion. Today, we'll be focusing on the cornbread itself, and I'm excited to share this super simple recipe with you. The best part is that it works perfectly in a cast iron skillet, but feel free to use a similarly sized cake pan if you don't have one.

The ingredients are straightforward, and you can easily find them at your local grocery store. We'll need all-purpose flour, corn flour, sugar, a little bit of salt, baking powder, one egg, some cornmeal, melted butter, and milk. Make sure to get all the dry ingredients together in a bowl and whisk or fork them until they're well combined. This is crucial because we don't want to mix everything too much after adding the wet ingredients.

Now it's time to add the wet ingredients. We'll start by cracking one egg into the bowl, followed by a small amount of milk. Give the mixture a quick tap and whisk until the egg starts to break down. Then, slowly pour in some melted butter while mixing the batter with a fork or whisk. Be careful not to overmix; we want to combine everything just enough to create a smooth batter.

Once the wet ingredients are combined, it's time to add the cornmeal coating. Take your reserved cornmeal and give it a nice coating on the bottom of the cast iron skillet. This will help prevent the bread from sticking to the pan. Next, pour the dry ingredient mixture into the skillet and mix everything together until well combined. Make sure there are no lumps or dry spots in the batter.

With all the ingredients mixed together, we're ready to add a few finishing touches. Take a small amount of butter and grease the skillet again, making sure it's evenly coated. This will help the cornbread release from the pan when it's done baking. Finally, pour some milk into the bowl and quickly whisk until combined.

Now that our batter is ready, let's pop it into the oven! Preheat your oven to 375°F (190°C), and once it's hot, carefully place the skillet in the oven. Bake for 20 minutes, or until the cornbread reaches a nice golden color and a knife inserted comes out clean.

As we wait for the cornbread to bake, let's talk about why this recipe is so simple. The key is to not overmix the batter, as this can lead to a dense and unpleasant texture. By mixing everything just enough, we'll create a light and fluffy crumb that's perfect for serving with soups, stews, or even butter on its own. And don't forget – you can always add your favorite toppings or relishes to give it an extra boost of flavor.

Once the cornbread is done baking, remove it from the oven and let it cool slightly in the skillet. If using a cake pan, place the rack over the skillet and gently flip the bread onto the rack. As the bread cools, run your knife around the outside to loosen it from the pan. And that's it! Your delicious homemade cornbread is ready to be devoured.

We hope you enjoyed this simple recipe for cornbread, and we can't wait to hear your thoughts on it. Don't forget to like and subscribe to our channel, and if you have any other recipes you'd like to see us try, leave a comment below. Happy cooking!

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enand welcome back to love your food this week after the cornbread dressing last week we have the cornbread that goes into it super simple recipe for cornbread works ideally in cast iron although you can make this in a similar sized cake pan to the 10-inch cast-iron skillet that we're using here and really simple and a delicious recipe let's get started with some ingredients so we have all-purpose flour we have corn flour we have sugar a little bit of salt we have some baking powder we have one egg we have some cornmeal with some reserved to lie in our pan some butter which we're gonna melt some milk in there as well and that's the all-purpose flour that I was talking about at the beginning and we're gonna start just by getting our cast iron pan greased with a little bit of that butter and you just want to spread that around nicely give it a good coating because we're gonna coat this with with cornmeal it'll help it not stick to the pan it shouldn't anyway especially if you've got a well seasoned cast iron here but it it does give it a little nice texture on the outside as well thanks a little crispy so we're gonna use that that small amount of cornmeal that we set aside there and it's a little under half a cup and you're gonna give it a nice coating and make sure that it's well coated with the cast iron with the formulation say now as I said if you don't have a cast iron skillet we have a 10-inch cast iron skillet that this recipe fits perfectly and if you don't have that you can use a similarly sized cake pan as well so we're gonna get all of our dry angly ingredients together here so we have our salt our flour or corn flour the sugar and the cornmeal and the baking powder and you want to make sure you get everything in there and well combined you want to make sure that everything is is mixed together really thoroughly in there because our next stage is going to be adding the wet and we don't want to have to stir it very much after that so make sure that everything in there is just very evenly combined a whisk or a fork is perfect for this so there you go once you have rice a really nice even mixture we are going to add the milk and we're gonna add our egg right now so there you go add one egg and then we're just gonna start to combine this we want to break up the egg you can see we're just gonna give it a little tap and we're just gonna start blending the egg and the milk together and then give it a slight mix we just want to start to combine this because once we add the butter we're just gonna stir it very briefly so you can see we've not combined everything thoroughly here and we're gonna add our melted butter so here comes the butter now once this hits the milk you're gonna see we're gonna mix it really quickly so there's our butter in and make sure you get all of that out of there use a good scraper and then we're just gonna give a really quick mix you can see chef Caleb here just giving it a nice little whisk there to make sure that it's all well combined we didn't stir it very much before we added the butter and now the butters in we're just gonna whip it very quickly not very much at all until it's pretty uniform and there's no dry flour left at the bottom the reason is if this over mixes it just doesn't come out right it's the texture is wrong it becomes too dense so we just want to mix it very very quickly and until it's just combined the other thing you want to do is you want to get that in the oven right away you don't want to let the batter sit yeah it is made with baking powder but it will become pretty gluey and it will not rise at all if it's allowed to sit for very long so you want to get that into your pan just give it a quick little even out in your cast iron skillet there and then get that into the oven as quick as you can so there you go once it's nice and even in the pan we're just gonna pop that into the oven and that's our oven preheated we're gonna be 20 minutes on there that oven is at 375 so we're gonna take a look at it it it's not ready yet so we're gonna give it a turn we're gonna put it back in there for another 15 minutes now that should be enough time you'll know it's ready when it is well just about that color honestly nice golden color and if a knife comes out clean as you can see there that's pretty much it so we're just gonna let that cool just a little bit until it starts to pull away from the edge of the cast iron skillet over again if using a cake pan until it comes away just a bit from the edge of the cake pan and then we're gonna run our knife around the outside again this is what the cornmeal was for but we do want to let it cool on a cooling rack so just give it a toss out you can also do the flip where you put the rack on the cast iron and then flip it over and let it settle out onto the rack you want to be pretty gentle it's a fairly delicate Umbra head and that's it that's the whole thing so this is the cornbread recipe we used in our dressing last week you can serve this with soups and stews amazing with some butter on it there are possibilities to add as well you can put a little bit of our hot pepper relish in there you can even add a little bit of cheese in there if you want and that's it if you like this recipe please do like and subscribe and if you have any other recipes that you'd like to see chef Caleb try on the channel let us know in the comments below and remember to love your food\n"