Sweet Cornbread

Get a taste of the Southern States with this homemade and classic cornbread. This version of this versatile bread has a sweet touch to it. Brown sugar and honey are the secrets to making it moist on the inside and crispy on the edges! And baked without a skillet! 

We love cornbread because it is so easy to bake and just outstanding as a side dish for a savory meal or your afternoon tea. There is not much bread that can pull off both of these occasions.

There are different ways to sweeten cornbread. The secret to our recipe is the replacement of white granulated sugar with brown sugar and honey. 

We need easy when it comes to baking, and this recipe is one of those that you can pull off without having to search for hard-to-get ingredients, and you can bake it without having to invest in special equipment. Many recipes call for a preheated skillet which makes delicious cornbread, but a baking form made of silicon will work perfectly fine. Let’s see the results!

What You Need for Cornbread

To bake this cornbread, you need these ingredients.

• Corn flour comes in white and yellow, and you can use any of these two; the only difference is the color, not the taste, or the sweetness!
• Instead of using granulated sugar, we have chosen to replace this with brown sugar and honey. These two give a sweetness perfect for cornbread, add some more color if you are baking with white corn flour, and help create those crunchy edges!
• Eggs come in different sizes, and you can add a large instead of two medium ones.

How to Make this Sweet Cornbread

Cornbread is so easy to make, and we love easy! It is literally just blending the wet ingredients in one bowl and the dry ones in another. Pour wet into the dry ingredients, and mix until combined. Bake, and voìla you will have yourself a golden cornbread for your next meal! It is as easy as this.

Separate the dry and wet ingredients

Before you start baking your cornbread, let’s get the equipment ready. You don’t need much for this bread, but what will make a difference is using two bowls. Why? Because the general rule for baking is to separate the dry and wet ingredients before whisking them together. 

There is a good reason for doing it like this. When you mix the dry ingredients separately, you will evenly disperse the raising agents (in this recipe it is the baking powder), any sugar, etc. It is important for an even batter. It is also essential because if you over-mix the batter, it will toughen and strengthen the gluten in the flour, and as a result, you will have less tender bread. We want the cornbread to be light and airy!

The steps in more detail are:

Preheat the oven – Adjust the oven rack to the mid position and preheat the oven to 400°F/200°C. Make sure it has reached the right temperature before you bake the cake.

Prepare the dry ingredients – Take out all the dry ingredients and mix them together in a bowl.

Prepare the wet ingredients – Start by melting the butter. Once melted over low temperature, take the butter and put it into a separate bowl. Mix it with the eggs and milk, and then add the honey and stir to a smooth mixture.

Mix the ingredients – Whisk the dry ingredients with the wet ones, combine them into a single batter and stir well until you have an even mixture. 

Prepare for baking – Pour the batter into the baking form. The best shape is a squared one as it will give you easy-to-slice-into-squares bread. But if you only have a rounded shaped form, go for it. For this recipe, we chose to use a squared silicon form, but you can also use one in carbon steel or another non-stick pan. 

Bake it – This bread is quick to bake! Place the form in the middle of the oven for 20 minutes. The cornbread is ready when it has a crunchy layer on top, and you can see the golden brown edges of the cake. Take it out of the oven and let it rest a bit. Then take it out of the form, and cut it into smaller squared pieces.

Serve it! – Cornbread is best served warm if you ask us! To enhance the taste, sprinkle some honey or syrup on top or put a piece of salted butter and let it melt. Simply delicious!

Tips & Variation

Only your imagination is the limit to what you can serve with cornbread, or even add unexpected ingredients to the batter to make the cake flavorful.

• Serve “as-is” – Cornbread can be served as-is directly from the oven, plain and simple! 
• With butter or honey – add even more taste to it by putting butter, syrup, or honey on top. Allow it to melt over a warm piece of cornbread, and make it more heavenly.
• Onion and apple – Another perfect addition to your cornbread is onion and apple, sweet and savory at the same time! Fry them in the pan and add them as a topping. Yes, you heard right, this combo makes such a tasty touch to your traditional cornbread.
• BBQ side dish – Cornbread is a versatile bread you can serve with a BBQ or a chili-type stew! 
• Bacon – bacon goes well with so many dishes, and cornbread is one of them. Eat your bread with slices of bacon or even add some bacon crumbles directly into the cornbread batter. 
• More sugar – sprinkle some powdered sugar on top of your cake to bring more sweetness, and serve it with your afternoon tea!

There are plenty of ways you can eat your cornbread, and adjusting the sweetness in the recipe will make it less sweet and more savory. That is versatile for you, isn’t it?

How Long Can I Store My Cornbread?

Cornbread can last about five days if you store it in the refrigerator and about two days if you leave it at room temperature. If you see that the cornbread starts to get dark spots and has started to spoil, throw it out.

When you store it, wrap it tightly in plastic wrap, or foil to prevent it from drying out.