Sweet New England Cornbread
Lightly sweet with a slight cornmeal crunch, this sweet New England cornbread recipe is a Yankee classic.
By Yankee Magazine|May 20 2022|
Sweet New England Cornbread | Favorite Corn Recipes
Photo Credit: Hornick/RivlinThe type of cornmeal has a big impact on the texture of cornbread. Use coarse-grind cornmeal for a toothsome texture; medium-grind (stone-ground Rhode Island brands) for a pleasant crunch; or fine-grind (common in supermarkets) for a light, floury finish.
Yield
9 servings
Total Time
35 minutes minutesHands-on Time
5 minutes minutes
Ingredients
1-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup stone-ground cornmeal
1/4 cup granulated sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon kosher or sea salt
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled, plus more for pan
2 large eggs
1-1/2 cups whole or 2% milk
Instructions
Preheat your oven to 425° and grease a 9-inch square baking pan.
In a medium-size bowl, whisk together the flour, cornmeal, sugar, baking powder, and salt. Set aside. In a small bowl, whisk together the butter, eggs, and milk. Pour over the dry ingredients and fold together until just combined; don’t overmix.
Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake until the top is lightly golden and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, 25 to 30 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack to cool; then cut into squares and serve warm or at room temperature.
Oh, please from a Southern Gal, don’t put sugar in your cornbread! It’s not cake. Let me tell you how. In a bowl, mix 2 cups self rising meal, an egg (or not) and some buttermilk. Set your oven on 400. In an 8″ iron skillet, put in some bacon grease and get it hot; enough to cover the bottom of the skillet. When it’s good and hot, pour off the excess into the meal. It’ll sizzle. Then add your egg and buttermilk until it resembles a pancake consistency. Stir well. You might, in the meantime either temporarily reduce the heat under your skillet or slide it off the heat source. It should be hot but not smoking. Pour the meal mixture into your hot skillet. A ‘crust’ will form quickly. When it bubbles around the edges just a smidge, put it into the oven. In 30 minutes or so, you should have a golden pan of cornbread and if you’re skillet’s ‘cured properly’ it’ll slide right out as soon as you turn it over.
Sweet corn bread is the best. I’d rather have sugar in my corn bread than my ice tea.
You’re so right!!
To all the southerners coming to a New England website to make a comment about their cornbread, to quote YOU ALL, “Bless your heart”.
well now, this is not southern cornbread; this is New England cornbread, and New England cornbread is sweet. I have a good Southern cornbread recipe that includes putting bacon fat in each cup of a muffin tin, heat til it is smoking and put the batter in the muffin cups, cook. It’s very yummy and savory. Sometimes I like Southern, sometimes I like this, YUM. I added two tablespoons of condensed orange juice. It turned out very, very good.
Dear Southern Gal – please don’t criticize New Englanders about our beloved sweet cornbread. I wouldn’t go on Southern Living magazine and criticize southern style. and FYI – New Englanders also use cast iron skillets for corn bread, that isn’t a southern invention either. I have some really old pieces handed down to me from my great-grandmother.
I prefer sweet New England Cornbread, the sweetness of it compliments savory or salty dishes beautifully. And it isn’t as dry as its southern cousin, so you can easily wrap up a piece or two for breakfast the next morning – if it lasts that long.
Nice! 🙂
Scarlett, darling! I wish for you the bite and burst of New Hampshire sweet corn kernels in August…nirvana. South Carolina born, bred (and writing frothe sunny South right now)…I shall let the Yankees into Tara, to tell me anything they would like about the corn I dream of from September until July!
YUMMMMMMMM!
I would love to make some sweet corn bread, my Grandmother made some and called it johnnie cake, would this be the same thing? She was born in Missouri in the late 1800’s. Please help
Amen! That’s nothing like sweet, moist, New England cornbread.
Well as a southern young woman and converted Californian to owning an online Cornbread bakery I have a opinion as well. I rather not tell anyone how to eat their favored beloved cornbread. Rather southern, northern, eastern or from New England. After the first taste of grandma’s or grandpa’s cornbread because he taught her to cook after moving from Statesboro Georgia to Homestead, Florida. You will choose what you like, use it and what you don’t like, toss it. And that will create your own perception of your favorite cornbread. Some individuals will always hold on to a nostalgic recipe of cornbread and it will continue for many years. But, I will not ever expect someone to eat cornbread or like every piece of cornbread that I bake or fry. And for the record the comment on slamming New Englands cornbread was more offensive than the southern woman asking for help on how to make sweet cornbread. So to the southern sweet cornbread lover, just add a cup of sugar to every cup of flour of your cornbread batter. For the record I make all types of cornbread and sometimes New Englands is the perfect touch to a bowl of red wine seared oxtails and gravy. It was a pleasure….
I grew up on Missouri cornbread. Any left over from supper, my grandpa crumbled into a bowl of milk from his own cows and had for breakfast in the morning. I never did cotton to Southern cornbread, though I’ll admit it’s good with gumbo or collard greens. Johnnycake is my style, and Rhode Island is where I bake it, with some milky fresh corn from a farmer’s market thrown in.