Barbecue Class

Grant Crilly is the Executive Director and cofounder of ChefSteps. Grant is a classically trained chef and, prior to ChefSteps, he worked on the award-winning cookbook series Modernist Cuisine and cooked at various restaurants, including L’Astrance in Paris, Busaba in Mumbai, and Mistral Kitchen in Seattle.

Grant Crilly

12-inch Skillet

The Control Freak™ Home

Breville Super Q™

6-inch Carbon steel skillet(s)

10-inch Cast iron skillet

Breville Joule® Oven Air Fryer Pro

Digital instant-read thermometer

Baking/Cooling rack(s)

Unsalted butter

Corn kernels

Heavy cream

Whole milk

Egg(s)

Cake flour

Isomalt

Cornmeal

Granulated sugar

Kosher salt

Baking powder

Baking soda

Honey Butter

Corn: We recommend using frozen corn because it offers the most consistent quality and sweetness. If sweet corn is in season, you can substitute an equal weight of fresh corn kernels.

Unbleached cake flour: We recommend using <a href="https://www.amazon.com/King-Arthur-Cake-Flour-Unbleached/dp/B00P6ERO86?tag=chefsteps02-20">King Arthur Unbleached Cake Flour</a>, which has a protein content of around 7% and is milled very finely. Both of these qualities help produce a smooth, silky batter with low gluten potential that bakes into a softer, more tender cornbread compared with batters made with all-purpose or bread flour.

Isomalt: Commonly sold in crystal form, isomalt is a sugar substitute made from beet sugar that’s used in pastry and confectionery for creating clear, glossy decorations because it resists crystallization and humidity. It has about half the sweetness of regular sugar and doesn’t caramelize easily, making it ideal for producing a crispy crust on the cornbread without making it tooth-achingly sweet.

We recommend grinding isomalt into a fine powder in a blender or spice grinder to help it dissolve quickly in the batter.

Cornmeal: Cornmeal comes in a variety of grind sizes, ranging from fine cornmeal to the extra coarse grind typically used for making grits. For this recipe, we prefer using medium-grind cornmeal, which hydrates more quickly than coarse ground cornmeal and has a more robust texture than finely ground cornmeal. You can find medium-grind cornmeal in the Bob’s Red Mill section of the grocery store or <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Bobs-Red-Mill-Organic-Cornmeal/dp/B000WGELOI?tag=chefsteps02-20">online</a>.

Before we begin

In a 12-inch skillet, melt 360 g butter over medium-high heat. Add corn and cook, stirring occasionally, until corn is deep golden brown and butter stops foaming, about 30 minutes. Remove from heat.

Cook corn

Adjusting the amount of browning of the cooked corn changes the final color, texture, and flavor of the cornbread. Through many trials, we discovered that cooking the corn to a golden brown, which takes about 30 minutes, produces the sweetest, caramel-like flavor in the cornbread.

Cooking the corn for 10 minutes will produce a more yellow cornbread, but the moisture content of the corn will prevent the crust from crisping properly. Cooking the corn to a darker brown, about 40 minutes, decreases the amount of moisture in the batter, which will in turn produce a drier cornbread with less corn flavor.

Cooking corn will alter the texture and flavor.

While corn is cooking, adjust oven rack to lower-middle position and preheat oven to [f 450] with fan on if using a convection oven, or [f 475] if using a conventional oven. 

Set four 6-inch (or one 10-inch) cast iron or carbon steel skillets in oven and heat for at least 20 minutes.

Preheat pans

Over the years, we’ve found that no matter what pan you use to bake cornbread, preheating the pan first produces better results.

Preheating the pan jump-starts the crust formation process, encourages the batter to soufflé a bit along the edges of the pan, and promotes browning along the bottom, sides, and edges of the cornbread.

Preheat pans for crustier cornbread

Transfer contents of skillet to jar of a countertop blender. Blend on low speed until corn kernels are broken down into a coarse mash, about 15 seconds.

Stop blender and add cream and milk. Resume blending on medium speed, stopping to scrape down sides of blender as needed, until a coarse purée forms, about 30 seconds.

Stop blender, add eggs, then continue blending on medium speed until mixture is pale yellow and looks like cooked polenta, about 30 seconds. Stop blender and set aside.

Blend corn

In a medium bowl, whisk together cake flour, isomalt, cornmeal, sugar, salt, baking powder, and baking soda until well combined.

Scrape puréed corn mixture into bowl and stir until a thick, mostly smooth batter forms with no visible dry flour remaining, about 30 seconds.

Finish batter

Chemical leaveners like baking soda and baking powder give cakes, cookies, and quick breads, such as cornbread, their rise. Once the batter is mixed, the baking soda and baking powder become hydrated and start to produce gas. If the batter sits for too long before baking, the leaveners won’t be as effective and will produce a denser cornbread.

We recommend baking the cornbread batter no more than 1 hour after mixing.

Once you mix the batter, you’re on the clock!

Place bowl of cornbread batter on a scale and tare scale.

Carefully transfer preheated skillets to a heatproof surface. Divide remaining 80 g butter evenly between skillets (20 g butter per 6-inch skillet) and swirl to coat bottoms and sides of pans evenly with melted butter.

Once butter begins to brown, divide batter evenly between pans (about 350 g batter per skillet).

Return skillets to oven and immediately lower oven temperature to [f 365] with fan on if using a convection oven, or [f 390] if using a conventional oven. Bake, rotating pans once halfway through cooking, until cornbread have roughly doubled in height, edges are crispy and browned, and centers register [f 200] on an instant-read thermometer, 22 to 24 minutes.

Portion and bake cornbread

If baking one large cornbread in a 10-inch cast iron skillet, you will need to adjust the baking temperature and timing so that the top crust doesn’t get too dark before the cornbread reaches the target internal temperature of [f 200].

Here’s how to do it:

Carefully transfer preheated 10-inch skillet to a heatproof surface. Add remaining 80 g butter to pan and swirl to coat bottom and sides of pan evenly with melted butter.

Once butter begins to brown, add all of the batter to the pan.

Return skillet to oven and immediately lower oven temperature to [f 340] with fan on if using a convection oven, or [f 365] if using a conventional oven. Bake, rotating pan once halfway through cooking, until cornbread has roughly doubled in height, edges are crispy and browned, and center registers [f 200] on an instant-read thermometer, 36 to 38 minutes.

How to bake cornbread in a 10-inch skillet

For warm and gooey cornbread: Transfer skillets to a wire rack and let cornbread cool in pans until top crust is crisp, but interior is still warm, about 10 minutes.

For crisp and crumbly cornbread: Transfer skillets to a heatproof surface. Working with one skillet at a time, invert pan over a wire rack to unmold cornbread. Flip cornbread over, top-side up and set on wire rack. Repeat with remaining skillet(s). Let cornbread cool for at least 10 minutes and up to 4 hours.

Cool cornbread

One of the key features of this recipe is that it incorporates isomalt, a sugar alcohol that tastes about half as sweet as table sugar. And while that means our super-rich cornbread isn’t as sweet as cake, isomalt is also responsible for the extra crispy-crunchy crust the cornbread develops as it cools.

Because isomalt resists crystallization and is thus easier to work with than melted sugar, it is often used to make hard candies. (This is why isomalt is also a key part of our <a href="https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/bark-builder">Bark Builder</a>, which produces a glassy crust that’s very similar to the bark on smoked meats.) And since it is resistant to humidity, it won’t soften over time.

To take full advantage of those properties, we recommend letting the cornbread cool for a bit, so it can form a glassy crust. If you want that glassy crust to wrap around the entire cornbread, rather than just on top, we recommend popping the cornbread out of its baking vessel while it cools.

For extra crispy cornbread, get it out of the pan to cool.

Once cornbread has cooled for at least 10 minutes, serve with honey butter (if using). 

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Serve

Step 1: Preheat oven to [f 374]

Step 2: Melt butter
Melt butter on high heat in a heavy-bottomed pot.

Step 3: Add frozen corn; cook
Add the corn, scraping the bottom of the pot continuously to prevent scorching. Cook until golden brown.

Step 4: Blend ingredients
In a blender, blend corn-and-butter mixture. Add cream and milk. Blend on high until smooth. Add the eggs and continue blending until well mixed.

Step 5: Mix dry ingredients in a large bowl
Dry blend remaining ingredients in a large bowl.

Step 6: Transfer corn purée to the bowl of dry ingredients
Use a rubber spatula to mix thoroughly.

Step 7: Prep bread pans or cast iron skillet; add batter
Coat small bread pans or cast iron skillet with butter.

Dust with flour. Remove excess flour by tapping each pan against the counter.

Add batter to pans.

Step 8: Bake
Bake to core temperature of [f 194], about 15 minutes.

Step 9: Remove from pans while still hot
If using bread tins, carefully remove the bread from the pans while still hot and place on cooling rack. This way, the bread will develop more of a crust.

Step 10: Serve
Serve warm with <a href="https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/honey-butter">honey butter</a>.

Butter

Corn

Milk

Sugar

Salt

The original recipe

Cornbread can be baked in advance and then reheated with minimal loss in quality. Remove baked cornbread from pans and cool to room temperature on a wire rack. Once cooled, wrap cornbread tightly in plastic and then foil and refrigerate for up to 3 days.

Reheat cornbread on a wire rack set in a sheet pan. For 6-inch cornbread, reheat in a [f 400] oven until warmed through, about 8 minutes. For 10-inch cornbread, wrap cornbread in foil and reheat in [f 375] oven until center of cornbread registers [f 160], about 45 minutes. Unwrap cornbread and continue heating for 5 minutes to recrisp exterior.

Leftover cornbread can be wrapped tightly in plastic and foil and refrigerated for up to 3 days or frozen for up to 3 months.

Make-ahead and storage

Here’s what we love about cornbread: the sweet flavor of peak-season corn, a crispy crust, and a moist, tender interior that’s both light and super rich at the same time. We turned all those dials up to 11 to make this almost brownie-like riff on the corny quick bread. While that places our cornbread firmly on the northern side of the North/South divide (southern-style cornbread is savory and crumbly, as opposed to sweet and cake-like), none of us are fans of how tooth-achingly sweet some northern-style cornbread can be. By subbing in some isomalt for the sugar, you can produce a cornbread that’s sweet but not too sweet, with most of the actual sweetness coming from real, peak-season frozen corn. And that isomalt also does a lot more work than simply reducing the sweetness—it keeps the crumb tender and produces an almost glassy crispy crust. It’s the perfect cornbread—rich with butter, packed with corn flavor, with a crispy-crunchy crust and a super-tender crumb. EDITORS’ NOTE: We’ve updated this recipe by scaling down the batter by 10% to address the fact that readers were having issues with blending the batter and achieving a vortex. We’ve increased the amount of butter to provide a specific quantity for greasing the pans. We have also changed the baking procedure, preheating the pans at [f 450], which produces crustier cornbread with a better initial rise, and then baking at [f 365] to get the perfect interior texture. If you prefer to use the original recipe, we’ve included it as a tip at the end of the recipe before the make-ahead and storage instructions.

Rich as F*¢k Cornbread

Honey butter has slowly disappeared from store shelves over the last few decades, but mention the words “honey” and “butter” to people over a certain age and you’ll often get smiles and wistful looks as they remember eating it as a childhood treat.In a different era, when preserving and canning foods were more than just trendy things to do, adding honey to butter was a useful trick that would preserve butter for longer than salting alone. There is no shortage of recipes for honey butter, but not all are created equal. This recipe yields a rich, spreadable butter that strikes just the right balance between sweet and salty. We can’t recommend it enough as the finishing touch for our <a href="https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/rich-and-moist-cornbread">cornbread</a>.