I Tried 9 Boxed Cornbread Mixes and Now This Is the Only One I’ll Buy
updated Nov 11, 2020
Thanksgiving just isn’t the same without cornbread. Ditto for at-home barbecue. While it’s easy enough to make from scratch , sometimes you just need to skip the hassle of getting out the measuring cups and spoons and just open a box of mix.
All mixes, however, are not created equal. Some produce bland results, while others are so sweet that they could easily stand in for birthday cake. I know this because I just made the rounds to the grocery stores in my area to gather all the cornbread mixes I could find. I mean, someone had to find out which one was the best!
Keep in mind that if you’re baking cornbread from a mix, you’re likely going to end up with something on the sweeter side, not the savory kind of cornbread that’s traditional in the South. But sweet cornbread is what most people must be searching for these days, as all of the mixes I found had either sugar or honey powder in the mix.
How I Tested the Cornbread Mixes
I baked all the mixes in muffin cups, rather than baking pans or skillets, so that they would bake up faster and I could taste them all side-by-side without having to spend hours baking nine different mixes. I also used butter instead of oil to even the playing field, as some mixes specified butter instead of oil … and I firmly believe that butter makes any cornbread mix taste better.
I set up a blind tasting, gathered a few trusted testers (my family), and we sampled the cornbread muffins after they had cooled. The differences were amazing. One somehow managed to be both crumbly and pasty at the same time. Some were ridiculously dry. Some were bland and totally lacked any hints of corn. Trader Joe’s was so deeply fragrant with vanilla and so sweet, it truly could’ve served as dessert. (I can totally see it working great in a fruit cobbler format, but it was too sweet and birthday cake-y to serve with dinner.)
So which mix took first place?
The Best Cornbread Mix: Fleischmann’s Simply Homemade Cornbread Baking Mix, $2
Everyone kept coming back to this one, saying how much they loved it. Why? It’s perfectly balanced. Sure it was on the sweet side, but not over-the-top, and the rich corn flavor really came through. It was moist and tender, not dry, but didn’t venture into birthday cake or breakfast muffin territory. It’s savory enough to stand up to a bowl of chili and would welcome a slather of butter and drizzle of honey, too.
Buy : Fleischmann’s Simply Homemade Cornbread Baking Mix , $2.69 at Instacart
Runner-Up: 365 Cornbread and Muffin Mix, $3
This one was a close second. Like Fleischmann’s, it offers a similarly balanced flavor profile that goes a little bigger on corn flavor and a tad lighter on sugar than the rest. It’s a dollar more, though. Just keep in mind that it’s best made with butter even though the package specifies oil.
Buy : 365 Cornbread and Muffin Mix , $3 at Amazon
WatchDo you have a favorite cornbread mix? Tell us about it in the comments below!
Danielle Centoni
Contributor
Danielle Centoni is a James Beard Award-winning food writer, editor, recipe developer, and cookbook author based in Portland, Oregon. Her latest cookbook is "Fried Rice: 50 Ways to Stir Up The World's Favorite Grain."
Source : food
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