Honey Cornbread Recipe (Sweet and Moist)
- Preparation 15 min
- Cooking 30 min
- Servings 8
- Freezing Absolutely
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🍯 One of the best desserts I’ve eaten. I’m not exaggerating.
I’m obsessed with this one. It’s sweet, it’s light, and the texture sits closer to a warm pudding cake than to bread. You pull it out of the skillet, you wait fifteen minutes because you have to, you cut a wedge, and you understand immediately why I’m carrying on about it. Make it once for company and watch the table go quiet.
🌽 Let’s call it what it is: a corn cake
Real Southern cornbread is cornmeal, no flour, no sugar, and it goes next to a bowl of chili. This is not that. There’s a full cup of sugar in here plus honey, and I own it completely: this is DESSERT. Nobody’s going to be confused once they taste it. It’s great at brunch too, warm or even cold the next day. Just don’t come to it expecting your grandmother’s cornbread, or you’ll be disappointed for the wrong reason.
🔥 The screaming hot skillet is the whole trick
Put your cast iron in the empty oven and leave it a full fifteen minutes AFTER the oven hits temperature. When the batter hits that metal, the surface sets instantly: you get a thin crisp crust all the way around, the steam stays trapped inside, and the center rises instead of staying flat. In a cold pan you get a pale, soft top. It sizzles hard when you pour, and that sound is exactly what you’re after.
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🍳 Fifteen extra minutes, not just the preheat
This is mistake number one. When the oven beeps, the AIR is at 375°F, not the iron. The metal needs another solid fifteen minutes to soak up that heat. Pour too early and you get no sizzle, no crust, and you’ve thrown away the entire reason for using cast iron. Wait it out. It’s worth it.
🥛 Milk and lemon, not buttermilk
Buttermilk is a pain to find, and when you do find it you throw out three quarters of the carton. One tablespoon of lemon juice in 1 ¼ cups of regular milk does the identical job: the acid reacts with the baking soda and gives you a taller, more tender crumb. Let it sit while you prep, it will thicken and curdle a little. That’s what you want to see.
🌀 Actually whisk it, a full minute
Every recipe tells you to mix just until the flour is moistened. Not here. Whisk a good minute until there isn’t a lump left. There’s enough fat between the butter and the oil that the gluten won’t toughen, and the result is noticeably smoother and more tender. I’ve done it both ways, this one wins.
💧 A very thin batter means you did it right
Don’t panic when you pour. It runs like pancake batter and looks nothing like bread dough. That’s the butter, oil and honey doing their thing, and it’s exactly where the moisture comes from. There’s nothing to spread around with a spatula, it settles on its own.
🧈 The butter for the pan comes out of the bowl
Melt the whole amount at the start and just set a little aside before mixing it into everything else. No need to measure out half a tablespoon. Brush the hot bottom and sides generously and you’re done. The butter will sizzle and brown instantly, that’s fine.
⏱️ Thirty minutes, then twenty minutes of waiting
Thirty minutes on the nose, and the toothpick settles it. The hard part comes after: it has to cool 15 to 20 minutes in the skillet before you cut it. Straight out of the oven the center is still too soft and your wedges will fall apart. Twenty minutes and it slices clean.
📅 Make-ahead
There’s nothing to bake in advance here, it’s 45 minutes start to finish. The setup, though, is worth doing the night before: dry ingredients measured and whisked together in a labeled container, milk and lemon already combined in the fridge, butter weighed out. Next day you start the oven, melt the butter and whisk. One thing that can’t wait: the skillet has to heat empty while you make the batter, never the other way around.
🫙 It keeps, and it stays good
I wrap it in foil and leave it on the counter. Three to four days and it’s still excellent. Warm, it tastes like day one. Cold, it’s different but just as good, with a slightly tighter crumb. Honestly, day two has nothing to apologize for.
✅ What to serve with my honey cornbread?
On its own, as dessert, with a coffee. That’s when it’s at its best and it needs nothing else. It also makes a standout brunch centerpiece next to eggs and bacon, when you want something sweet on the table without making pancakes for twelve. If what you actually wanted was bread to serve with a meal, look at my no knead focaccia bread, which goes far better beside my classic beef chili.
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Ingrédients
- 1 ¼ cups (310 ml) milk
- 1 tbsp (15 ml) lemon juice
- 1 cup (250 ml) all-purpose flour
- ¾ cup (180 ml) fine yellow cornmeal
- 2 tsp (10 ml) baking powder
- ½ tsp (2 ml) baking soda
- ½ tsp (2 ml) sea salt
- ½ cup (115 g) salted butter, melted
- ¼ cup (60 ml) vegetable oil
- 1 cup (250 ml) granulated white sugar
- ⅓ cup (80 ml) honey
- 2 large eggs
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Preparation
- Preheat the oven to 375°F (190°C) with the empty 9-inch cast iron skillet already inside. Once the oven reaches temperature, let the skillet keep heating for another 15 minutes.
- In a measuring cup, stir the milk and lemon juice together. Let it sit while you prep the rest, until the milk thickens and curdles slightly.
- In a medium bowl, whisk the flour, cornmeal, baking powder, baking soda and salt.
- Melt the butter in a large bowl in the microwave. Set a little aside in a small container to grease the skillet.
- Add the oil, sugar and honey to the melted butter and whisk until smooth.
- Add the eggs and the milk and lemon mixture, then whisk again.
- Pour the dry ingredients into the wet and whisk for about 1 minute, until not a single lump remains. The batter is very thin, that’s normal.
- Pull the screaming hot skillet out of the oven with mitts. Brush the bottom and sides generously with the reserved butter, it will sizzle hard.
- Pour the batter straight into the skillet. Don’t bother smoothing the top, the batter is thin enough to level itself.
- Bake for about 30 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
- Let it cool for 15 to 20 minutes before cutting into wedges.
A screaming hot cast iron skillet, and patience twice over. Heat the empty pan in the oven for a full fifteen minutes after the oven reaches temperature, so the batter sets on contact and builds a thin crisp crust. Then, once it’s baked, let it rest 15 to 20 minutes before cutting or the wedges fall apart. The third piece is acid: milk with a spoonful of lemon juice activates the baking soda and gives you a taller, softer crumb than plain milk ever will.
Depends entirely which cornbread, and mine isn’t the healthy one. Traditional Southern cornbread, made of cornmeal, a little fat and buttermilk with no sugar, is a reasonable side. My version carries a full cup of sugar plus honey, butter and oil: it’s a dessert and I’m not going to pretend otherwise. Eat it for what it is, a wedge with a coffee, and everybody’s happy.
Southern cornbread is cornmeal only, no flour, no sugar or nearly none, baked in cast iron and served alongside chili or greens. Sweet cornbread, the Northern style, adds flour and sugar, which turns it soft and cakey. Mine goes further than most Northern versions with a cup of sugar and honey on top of that, which is why I call it a corn cake. Neither is wrong. They’re just two different foods wearing the same name.
Yes, and that’s exactly what I do. One tablespoon of lemon juice stirred into 1 ¼ cups of regular milk does the same work: the acid activates the baking soda, giving you a taller and more tender crumb. Let it sit five minutes and it will thicken and form small curds, which is how you know it worked. White vinegar does the job too. Frankly it beats buying a litre of buttermilk to use one cup.
Dessert, on its own, with coffee. It’s a corn cake, not a dinner bread, so treat it that way. It’s also excellent at brunch, served warm alongside eggs and bacon. If you were after bread to go with a meal, take my no knead focaccia bread or serve my classic beef chili with something less sweet on the side.
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