Ina Garten-Inspired Corn Bread
The difference between good corn bread and the kind nobody goes back to is a crust, and the crust is made before the bread bakes at all.
Put the empty skillet in the oven with the fat in it, and pour the batter into fat that is already shimmering. The outside of the batter fries on contact and sets into a thin, crisp shell in the first ten seconds. Poured into a greased cold pan, the same batter simply bakes, and you get a soft-sided cake instead.
You will hear it hiss. That sound is the recipe working.
Jump to the recipe ↓Ina Garten-Inspired Corn Bread
Serves 8 · Baking
- Prep
- 10 min
- Cook
- 25 min
- Total
- 35 min
Moderate7 steps, a technique that commonly fails
~320 kcal per servingestimated
Ingredients
- 180 g fine cornmeal
- 180 g plain flour
- 3 tbsp caster sugar
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
- 1 tsp kosher salt
- 400 ml buttermilk
- 2 eggs
- 100 g butter, melted, plus 2 tbsp for the pan
Method
- Put a 25 cm cast iron skillet in the oven with 2 tbsp butter and heat to 220°C (200°C fan).
- Whisk the dry ingredients together in one bowl.
- Whisk the buttermilk, eggs and melted butter in another.
- Fold wet into dry until just combined. Stop early.
- Pull the hot pan out. Pour the batter into the shimmering fat — it should hiss.
- Bake , until the top springs back and the edges have pulled away.20–25 minutes
- Rest in the pan before turning out.10 minutes
Buttermilk and baking soda are a pair
Baking soda needs an acid to react with. Buttermilk supplies it, which is why these two appear together in every good corn bread. Swap in plain milk and keep the soda and you get almost no lift and a faint soapy taste — the untriggered soda has nowhere to go.
No buttermilk? A tablespoon of lemon juice in 250 ml of milk, left ten minutes, does the job.
Stop mixing while it still looks wrong
Cornmeal has no gluten but the flour does, and an over-mixed batter turns rubbery and tunnels. Fold until the last streak of dry flour just disappears. Lumps are fine.
Fine or coarse cornmeal
Fine gives a cake-like crumb, coarse gives grit and more corn flavour. Half and half is the version most people like without being able to say why. Polenta works as the coarse half; cornflour is not cornmeal and will not work at all.
Storing
Two days at room temperature, wrapped. It stales fast because there is no fat holding it together beyond the butter. Day-old slices are better toasted in butter than reheated whole.
Questions people ask
Do I need a cast iron skillet?
Any oven-safe heavy pan works. What matters is that it is hot before the batter goes in.
Can I use plain milk?
Add a tablespoon of lemon juice per 250 ml and wait ten minutes, or the bicarbonate of soda has nothing to react with.
Why is mine dense and rubbery?
Over-mixing. Fold only until the dry flour disappears.
Sweet or not sweet?
Three tablespoons is the middle ground. Northern versions go sweeter; a Southern skillet corn bread often has none at all.
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