The Impatient Chef's Moist Cornbread Recipe

20 years ago, I stopped at a downtown Portland Italian restaurant, the name of which I have forgotten, and ordered a $20.00 ravioli dish that had precisely 3 raviolis in it. They were extremely good raviolis, but I left hungry. In the lead up to the insufficient pasta, however, arrived side dishes. Two of them, if memory serves. One of them was cornbread.

I hate cornbread, or, more appropriately, I hate dry cornbread.

The small dish of creamy, corny delight that arrived more resembled a custard than a bread (or cake), and demolished my expectations of what cornbread could be. Intrigued, I began sampling cornbreads from other restaurants from time to time. Invariably, however, when the dishes were cleared away from the table, there would be one sad piece of cornbread with a single bite out of it sitting on an abandoned plate.

I hate dry cornbread.

I did not set out to recreate the recipe from that Italian restaurant, rather, I wanted to make ordinary cornbread less Death Valley, and more Olympic Peninsula. My first decision was to add creamed corn, and the second was to add more eggs. Lastly, I made the batter slightly thinner than a traditional cornbread batter.  What I ended up with was a nicely moist corn bread.

My first piece of advice is to not over-bake it. My second is to use a cast iron pan in which to bake it. My third is to not use too small of a pan. You don’t want to make it too thick because that requires longer baking, and more likelihood of dryness. 

Ingredients:

• 1 can creamed corn 
• 3 tbsp butter, melted 
• 1 1/2 cup corn flour
• 1 1/2 cup AP flour
• 1 tbsp baking powder* 
• 1 tsp kosher salt 
• 1 cup milk* 
• 4 large eggs 
• 4 tbsp sugar 
• More butter for greasing pan 

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.   Place a 10" cast iron skillet inside.
2. In a large mixing bowl, combine the dry ingredients. 
3. In a smaller mixing bowl, beat the eggs, then add the milk, and combine. Next, add the creamed corn, and the melted butter. Stir to combine. 
4. Add the wet mixture to the dry, and combine. 
5. Get the cast iron skillet out of the oven, and carefully grease with butter. Add the batter, and place into the oven. Bake for 30 to 35 minutes, or until the outside edge gets brown spots, and an inserted toothpick comes out clean. 
6. Serve with butter, and / or honey if desired. 

*To substitute buttermilk for the whole milk, use 1 tbsp baking soda instead of the baking powder. Whole buttermilk is preferred to low fat.