113g (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted and cooled to warm 1 Tbsp unsalted butter at room temp for buttering the pan 426g unbleached all-purpose flour 250g granulated sugar 125g whole grain cornmeal (fine or medium) 17g salt (2 Tbsp Diamond Crystal Kosher or 1 Tbsp table salt) 24g (2 Tbsp) baking powder 4 large eggs (200g without shell), either room temp or from the fridge 70g refined oil (like grapeseed) 610g (2.5 c) whole milk warmed up to about 80F/27C (90F/33C if your eggs are cold) 1 Tbsp unsalted butter for buttering the top of the bread
Preheat the oven to 325F/160C if you have a convection fan (350F/180C if you don’t) with a rack in the middle. Butter a 12 inch (30cm) cast iron pan or a rectangular metal 13x9x2 inch (33x23x5cm) pan.
In a large bowl, combine the flour, sugar, cornmeal, salt, and baking powder. Whisk together for about a minute.
In a separate medium bowl, whisk the eggs. Once the eggs are homogenous, whisk in the oil and milk.
Make a well inside the flour mixture and pour in the wet ingredients, except for the butter. Moving your whisk from the edge to the center of the bowl, slowly mix the batter. Periodically shake the excess flour out of the whisk. When the dry ingredients are completely moistened, but still very lumpy, add in the melted butter. Continue the stirring until fully incorporated and no longer lumpy.
Pour the batter into the buttered pan and bake until a knife or skewer comes out clean, about 50 min. Rub with about 1 Tbsp butter. Cool for an hour or until warm and serve. Leftovers can be toasted in butter in a skillet over medium heat.
Pancake Version: Half of the batch makes pancakes for 4-6 people. After making the batter, let it rest 10 minutes and then fry in a lot of butter.
There is a restaurant in Newton, Massachusetts called Buttonwood that makes the best cornbread
ever. They serve it as an appetizer, but I usually get it for dessert because a northern
cornbread is sweet enough to be a cake. But regardless of what you call it, it's incredible,
light, fluffy, buttery, and delightfully corny.
A few years ago, Greg Brodsky, who was the chef at Buttonwood at the time, helped me
develop a recipe that comes as close as you can get to the Buttonwood cornbread at home.
And here it is.
Preheat the oven to 325F if you have a convection fan or 350F if you don't. Generously butter
a 12 inch cast iron pan or a rectangular baking pan that is 9x13x2. Although you can
use any pan material, metal, especially a dark metal, will give you better browning
than glass. Cast iron will give you the best possible crust, so if you have it, definitely
use it.
If your cast iron pan is not as big as mine, you can bake the leftover batter in another
pan. I'll show you how far to fill it.
Melt a stick of butter and cool it until warm, but not hot. In a large bowl, combine 426
grams of unbleached all-purpose flour, 250 grams of granulated sugar, 125 grams of finely
ground cornmeal, 17 grams of salt, and 24 grams of baking powder. Whisk thoroughly.
A few words about cornmeal. It varies greatly from brand to brand. I've made this cornbread
with arrowhead mills and with the cheapest yellow cornmeal I could get in my store and
both worked well, so don't worry about it. Use whatever cornmeal you want as long as
it's not ground coarsely.
Beat 4 eggs until homogeneous. Your eggs can be straight from the fridge or at room temperature
because the milk will warm them up in a minute.
Whisk in 70 grams of neutral oil like grapeseed or refined sunflower.
Warm up 2.5 cups of whole milk to warm room temperature. I microwave it in 20 second intervals
until I get it to somewhere between 80 and 90 degrees. The exact temperature is not important.
Whisk it into the eggs.
Make a well inside the flour mixture and pour in the egg-milk mixture. Gently mix the batter
by moving your whisk from the outside to the inside and shaking it off.
When the dry ingredients are moistened, but still very lumpy, add the butter and mix it
Make sure to scrape up the sides and give it a final vigorous but short mix. As soon
as no more lumps remain, stop mixing.
Pour the batter into the prepared pan. If your pan is smaller than mine, you want to
fill it about 2 thirds full and bake the rest of the batter in another pan.
Put a towel or a trivet under your pan so that you don't damage your counter and give
it a tap to get rid of large bubbles.
Place in the middle of the oven and bake until a skewer or knife comes out clean. I do it
at 325F with convection and it takes me about 50 minutes, but it will greatly depend on
your oven, pan material, and dimensions.
As soon as the cornbread is out of the oven, rub it with a tablespoon of butter.
Cool for about an hour or until it's just warm, but not too hot and enjoy. If you serve
it while still warm, it will be very light and fluffy.
Once the cornbread cools off, you'll need to toast it in butter, which I think is even
tastier. Set up a skillet over medium heat, add a little butter, and brown the slices
on both sides. This makes an amazing breakfast.
I know that this recipe is huge, but you can easily cut the bread into portions, wrap tightly
in plastic, and use over the next couple of days or freeze them.
You can also cut the recipe in half. Since I gave you the weight of all the ingredients,
it should be very easy to scale it up or down. Just be careful if your salt and baking powder
weights drop below 8 grams. For such small batches, you might want to use teaspoons since
kitchen scales aren't reliable for really small quantities. I even tried frying this
batter to make pancakes and they turned out simply incredible.
I hope you give this recipe a try. Here are more very detailed culinary tutorials for
you to check out and if you are ever in the Boston area, I hope you give Buttonwood a
try.
