Cast Iron Cornbread - Honey Butter Cornbread - Food Wishes
hello this is chef john from food wishescomm with cast-iron cornbread that's
right there's not many things easier tomake than cornbread which is why it's
such a perfect choice when you need tobring something to do a barbecue or a
cookout oh and by the way if you stopwatching the video because you don't
have a cast-iron panyou should start watching again because
you do not need a cast-iron pan to makethis but anyway like I was saying this
is the perfect thing to bring to abarbecue because it's simple to make
everybody loves it and it's way waycheaper than bringing meat although that
last reason for bringing it we shouldprobably keep to ourselves but anyway
let's go ahead and get started bymelting a dangerously large amount of
butter in this cast-iron skillet that wehave set over medium heat and the game
plan here is once it's melts we're goingto use half in the batter and then leave
half in the pan to bake the cornbread inso all we need to do is wait for this to
melt and then simply turn off the heatand reserve it till needed and then what
we'll do once our butters melted is moveon to this extremely simple batter which
we will start with some stone groundcornmeal or at least that's how it was
sold to me I would love to tour one ofthese cornmeal factories to see if
they're really using stones I have afeeling that's just an expression but
anyway to our possiblys don't groundcornmeal we will add some salt as well
as a little shake of cayenne just alittle shake and then we're also gonna
want to add some kind of sweetener herewhich is usually white sugar or
sometimes brown sugar but I really doprefer honey I just think it gives it a
little more interesting flavor pluskeeps the local bees busy and then after
our honey we will plop in a couple largeeggs
I've always felt plop is an underratedfood verb and then after the eggs we're
going to need some kind of dairy productwhich could be many things and my case
is going to be buttermilk and then oncethat's in we'll go ahead and give this a
quick mix before adding the rest of theingredients and by the way how much milk
or buttermilk you add at this point isgoing to determine the final texture of
your cornbread all right since I don'treally like dry corn breads I'm gonna
use a good amount here but if you doprefer something a little drier and
crumbly you can definitely cut that backand I will be touching on that in the
blog post and then once that's combinedwe'll go ahead and add some self-rising
flour which as you all know is justregular flour with some baking powder
milled into itthe reason I like to add this after
everything else is mixed is because themore you mix this white flour the more
gluten you develop and if you over mixit your Brack and get a little tough and
chewy so by mixing everything first andthen this at the end I think it might
help us avoid that issue so a prettysmart strategy if I do say so myself
unless of course you forget to mix inhalf the butter which I did but that's
okay these things happen so I went aheadand added exactly half that melted
butter from the pan and don't measurejust I it and I thought by spooning it
over like this I would minimize theamount of mix he needed and I went ahead
and stirred that in own in case you'rewondering which you really should be we
could have added half our melted butterright when we added our buttermilk that
probably would have been the best timeand not to spoil the ending but this
really didn't have any negative effectand then what we'll do once all this is
combined is grab a spatula and transferthat into our cast iron pan which
theoretically contains half the butterwe melted oh and I should mention you
can actually make everything up to thispoint and then just wrap this tighten
foil and then bring it to the barbecueuncooked and finish it near or on the
fire so just a little something to keepin mind but anyway we'll go ahead and
transfer our batter in at which point wewill very carefully transfer this into
the center of a 400 degree oven forabout 25 minutes or so or until it looks
like this and if you want you could testthis with a toothpick and it should come
out clean but you know what I didn'teven bother cuz I knew this was done and
if you're thinking hey it looks like youhave some burn spots those are actually
milk solids from the butter that haveformed some caramelized crumbs on the
top and if those bother you and/oryou're going to take some pictures you
go ahead and brush those off althoughthey really don't provide any off taste
so this really is 100% unnecessary andthen whether you're Crum brushing or not
you should probably let this cool down alittle bit before you slice it
alright warms good in room temp skid butI'm not a big fan of cutting baked goods
while they're piping hot but anyway youdecide you are for all the Jason Bourne
a blend eat your bread made from cornbut personally I do let it cool down
which this has so I'm gonna go ahead andcut a piece and as usual the first piece
is the hardest to cut without screwingit up but as you can see it actually
came out pretty well although it didkind of crack in half into two pieces
which I took as a sign D one of themthat my friends was a great couple bites
of cornbread all right it was tender anddelicate without being too crumbly and
sort of dense and moist without beingtoo heavy and as promised the tank from
the buttermilk balances the sweetness ofthe honey perfectly so I really do love
this version and I deemed it worthy tosit next to some smoked brisket and
baked beans and greens and even thoughit already had almost too much butter I
decided to spread a little more on thetop as tradition dictates and yes if I
was smart I would warm that back up so Icould get the always provocative melting
butter money shot but still even coldwith maybe too much butter it still was
magnificent and I should add is easy toadapt all right if I'm serving this with
some barbecue maybe I do a more savoryversion that's a little bit on the
moister side whereas if I'm gonna serveit with a spicy chili I might do a drier
version that has a little more sweetnessto balance the spice but regardless
whether you make it as is or tweak it toyour tastes I really do hope you give
this a try soon so head over to foodwishes comm for all the ingredient
amounts of more info as usual and asalways enjoy
you