I can’t figure out why my cornbread keeps coming out so dry.
-I can’t cook it any less than I do without the middle staying wet and collapsing.
-I can’t start it off any hotter than I do without the bottom catching before the middle cooks.
-Adding cream instead of milk makes better tasting dry cornbread.
-Adding water to any of the other combinations makes it impossible to cook it all the way without burning the top.
-Adding butter makes it taste better but just as dry.
-Adding egg makes it even drier.
-Adding only the yolk of the third egg makes it flat and rubbery.
-Adding vegetable oil doesn’t seem to change anything.
-Leaving it to soak in the moisture for a while also makes it flat.
What am I missing here? What can I add/subtract/change to make it less dry?
What’s your recipe and what are you cooking it in?
My off-the-cuff suggestion would be to add some canned corn to the batter. As it cooks it will release moisture which will keep the cornbread moist. Play around with the amounts until you are happy.
Personally, I make mine in a cast iron chicken fryer and semi-follow the recipe in Joy of Cooking.
Make sure your batter is not heavy. It should be a bit less runnier than pancake batter. I whisk mine up right before pouring in the hot skillet. Cornmeal is less fluffy than flour. I know cooks who add flour to the mix. I don’t. I’ve never had to.
We need to see your recipe.
Seconding this. I assume your recipe has flour of some kind, you can substitute corn starch for some of it. Don’t add too much egg, if for instance you are using two eggs, reduce that to two egg yolks.
A bigger skillet may make a dryer cornbread.
(YMMV)
I make mine in a very old inherited cast-iron cornbread skillet. About 8in across at the midline. Sides barely flare out. Makes exactly 4 wedges of bread.
I crisco and preheat the pan in the oven. When I have the bayter mixed I open the oven, pull out the rack and pour the bayter in the man. I listening for a sizzle and close the door
The really moist stuff you can buy has tons of sugar, and probably some chemicals to keep it moist. If you add a lot more sugar, yours will be moister, too, but it will also be unpleasantly sweet.
You may be on to something here. I was raised on buttermilk cornbread, and add sugar now only out of reluctant necessity to get the rest of the household to help me eat it. Just a couple of tablespoons.
Sometimes I use Jiffy mix, and sometimes I use the ratios below, but it always comes out dry as a bone. The mix definitely has more sugar than I add in.
I do a triple recipe and pour it into a lasagna pan lined with parchment paper, then straight into a hot oven. I used to use a hot cast-iron with bacon grease, but I almost never make bacon anymore.
For every egg – 1 cup cornmeal, 1/2 cup self-rising flour, 3/4(ish) cup liquid (used to be buttermilk, now cream or milk* with 2tblsp sugar) pinch salt
Mix lightly and place in 45 degree oven. Turn down to 375 and don’t open until it’s brown on top.
*I’ve tried everything from Whipping cream to skim milk to water and every possible combination thereof, I think.
This is also completely different. My batter is so thick, I run the spatula down the middle to make a long dent so the middle doesn’t take as long to cook. That dent doesn’t fill in at all. But if I made it runny, I’d have to turn the oven down to 325 to keep it from burning before it was cooked through.
Maybe I’m trying to make it too tall? If it were shorter, I could maybe get away with a thinner batter. . .
Aunt Jemima corn meal mix
1 egg
Butter milk
1 tbsp sugar.
I’m sorry the amount of corn meal and buttermilk is varying. Humidity and the thickness of buttermilk makes it different every time.
It’s appx 11/2 cup of corn meal
snd 3/4 cup of milk.
You can use whole milk but we like the tang of buttermilk. The sugar is a personal preference, you can omit it.
This for a small pan.
Corn bread should be a coarse rustic bread. You don’t want it too cakey.
Be sure and get corn meal ‘MIX’, regular cornmeal requires more ingredients to rise properly.
I’m thinking you’re wanting, what my MIL called ‘egg’ bread. It’s a sweet breakfast cornbread. It is similar in texture to jiffy mix corn bread. Sweet and soft.
Here is a recipe for one with sour cream. We used to get it from the restaurant DeSha’s in the Cincinnati area. It is SO good. I had tried to recreate it and failed so was very happy to find this recipe. The cook time is wrong, it takes a lot longer to bake a 13x9 pan with the full recipe. The restaurant served small loaf pan sizes of slices, so I think whoever wrote this down just didn’t note that. Anyway, I most often make 1/3 of the recipe in a 8” or 9” square pan, and that does take about half an hour. 2/3 of the recipe fills a 13x9 pan pretty well, or you can do the full recipe in that size pan too. It is quite calorific, very moist, and absolutely delicious.
I heat an iron pan in a 425 oven, and when it’s nice and hot, melt a tablespoon of butter in the pan until it’s just starting to brown. Then I scrape the batter in, and bake 20-25 minutes.
The cornbread comes out moist enough, and the crust is fried in butter and magnificent.
If you’re following a standard recipe and it’s coming out too dry, you are cooking it too long or too hot, period. It’s done cooking when it’s still just a bit under-cooked in the center, because all cakes will continue to cook before they’ve cooled down. It’s extra important with cornbread because cornmeal has such a crumbly texture.
