Since receiving Milk Bar Life as a gift, I’ve been making an effort to bake my way through some of the recipes with varying degrees of success. I was most excited for the Grandma’s Oatmeal Cookies. While delicious, I have yet to get them to come out the texture that is portrayed in the book pictures, so I have not yet shared that recipe for you (though Mr. Eats is happy to keep eating the failed attempts for me). I successfully made Tosi’s gorgeous Fruity Pebble Meringues, and now I have made what Mr. Eats has deemed “the best cornbread he’s ever had.”
This recipe, like most of Tosi’s recipes, is very generous in the butter department. I followed the recipe as written, because I wanted to see how it came out. While it was delicious as-written I think that you could easily reduce the amount of butter by at least a half a stick without any issues, and I plan to make it that way going forward. If you’re too scared to make that big of a change (that’s about 1/4 of the butter called for), you can reduce it by less.
The recipe calls for a 10-inch round cake pan or a 9-inch square pan. Luckily, I own neither of those so I baked it in a 9-inch round pan with very high edges instead, which added about 8 minutes to the baking time. You will know the cornbake is done with the center is not jiggly at all and a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out almost completely clean, with a few crumbs sticking to it. If the cake browns too much before it has completed baking, cover the top loosely with a sheet of foil and continue to bake until it is finished.
This cornbake is great served slightly warm, but even better the next day. You can rewarm pieces in the microwave for a few seconds, or just sneak them off of the serving dish and eat them cold while no one’s watching. Either way, a generous drizzle of honey (I’ve been a big fan of this one from Trader Joe’s as of late) is highly recommended.
Ingredients
- 1 1/3 cups all purpose flour
- 1 cup cornmeal
- 3 Tablespoons granulated sugar
- 3 Tablespoons brown sugar
- 1 Tablespoon kosher salt
- 1 Tablespoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 8 ounces whole-fat sour cream, room temperature
- 1 (14.75-ounce) can creamed corn
- 1 cup (2 sticks)* unsalted butter, melted (see note below)
- 1 cup fresh cooked sweet corn (you may use frozen, but be sure to thaw it to room temperature first)
- 2 large eggs, room temperature
- 1/4 cup honey, plus more for serving
- 2 Tablespoons whole milk
- 1/2 teaspoon white vinegar
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400F degrees and prepare a 10-inch round baking pan with butter or nonstick spray.
- In a small mixing bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients until combined.
- In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the wet ingredients until completely mixed.
- Pour dry ingredients into wet ingredients and fold them in with a spatula until well combined and no more flour streaks remain.
- Pour mixture into prepared pan and bake for 45 to 50 minutes until the top is a deep golden brown and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean with a few crumbs sticking to it.
- Cool in its pan on a wire rack for 20 minutes, then invert out of pan to complete cooling.
- Bread is best served slightly warm and drizzled with honey.
Notes
* I have a feeling that you could easily reduce the butter here by a half stick (4 Tablespoons) without any issue, however I wanted to test the recipe as-written, for science.
* Make sure all of your ingredients are at room temperature. If your ingredients are too cold, the melted butter will solidify into regular butter and you will be very sad.
* Fresh or frozen sweet corn would work here, just make sure it is at room temperature along with the rest of your ingredients. I suspect a generous helping (1/4 to 1/2 cup) of green chiles would do well in this, too.
[ Recipe from Milk Bar Life ]
#honeycornporn
SERIOUS, i live for cornbread. or just corn things, or maybe just corn, but either way, this falls into that category BIG TIME. I like your high-sided 9-inch pan choice, btw: that’s sort of my go-to pan no matter what size the recipe calls for, and it always works.
so: i’ll need an update (which i’m sure you’ll give me) when you do the butter-reduced one. Especially note the second day with the butter-reduced one because i’ve noticed if you reduce the fat too much, the second day is too dry versus being nicely “bloomed” in the flavor and texture department. Think Sara Lee corn muffins: those were great out of the oven, but the second day? not awesome.
I’m making this on vacation b/c you know my family is a tribe of corn-lovers.
Looks like it’s one cup of butter according to this site:
https://www.countryliving.com/food-drinks/recipes/a4076/cornbake-recipe-clx0312/
Imma try it out! thank you 🙂
Nice find! I wonder if she corrected the recipe from the book or if they reached the same conclusion I did about the butter 😀 either way, good to know!! Thank you for sharing!