Which is it?
Did you watch that It’s a Southern Thing video too?
I think if you go over more than a tablespoon of sugar, it’s really closer to a cake than a bread. But if you don’t sugar or sugar minimally, it’s bread.
I suppose it’s technically bread, what with the word being in its name and all.
Just playing, I completely get why you ask. The way I make it and prefer it is more cake like in texture with a little bit of sweetness.
It’s a brioche.
I realize there can be considerable overlap between some of the poll options; I was just trying to be thorough.
Sugar in cornbread is awful. As bad as sweet tea.
It’s a short bread.
I serve it with savory foods, like smothered with creamy chicken soup. So I vote bread.
Also, it’s baked in a cake pan and my family’s recipe has a ton of sugar. So I vote cake.
It’s made from batter, so it’s more like cake than bread.
Contrast with an arepa, which is made with corn dough rather than a corn batter.
I put butter on it. I don’t put butter on cake. Therefore, it’s bread.
Speak for yourself…
Depends on how it’s made. Lots of people load it up with white flour and sugar until it’s cake in all but name. The way I make it, almost entirely cornmeal and less sweet, it’s bread all right. Admittedly this is where the lines blur somewhat.
Yankees - cake
People Who Know Cornbread - bread
This was in one of Bill Maher’s “New Rules” books. “Cornbread isn’t bread – it’s cake!”
I suspect it’s partly Maher’s sense of humor (plus needing another entry) and partly his chiding Americans for eating too much sugar – “you think you can get away with just saying “It’s bread”, but we all know it’s really Cake.”
This is one of those places where no clear line of demarcation exists, with bread and cake merging together at the boundary. I maintain that it’s a short bread (as stated above), but sometimes it can be awfully sweet.
There is corn bread and then there are corn cakes, so there must a distinction somewhere, however vague. So, I voted that corn bread is bread.
If banana bread counts as bread, then corn bread is even more bread.
I’ve seen people butter up a piece of corn bread and put syrup or sugar on it. Makes a kind of dessert.
Call it what you want but banana bread is definitely cake, not bread.
If it’s even at all ambiguous, then you’re using way too much sugar in your recipe. You don’t need any: Corn has enough natural sweetness on its own.
Hey, not all of us Yankees are corn-sugarers. But yes, in this, like in every other culinary matter other than tea, the South has it right.
I prefer my cornbread to be on the cake-y side.
Johnnycake, however, is definitely bread.