This honey cornbread recipe is hearty and robust. It’s rustic with plenty of cornmeal, yet tender and moist. Sweet, buttery cornbread that’s baked in the skillet or cast iron for a soft interior and a slightly crispy golden exterior.
Sweet Honey Cornbread Recipe
Cornbread is one of the little golden joys in life. I’m a sucker for for a great cornbread recipe, and apparently, so is the rest of my family. We break out the homemade cornbread whenever we have an excuse to have it.
Whether our super moist cornbread is paired with this Chunky Homestyle Chili, White Chicken Chili, Slow-Cooker Chili with Sriracha, or Baked BBQ Ribs… honey cornbread has a well deserved, permanent fixture next to them all…
This Sweet Cornbread smells irresistible
Just the sweet aroma of honey and cornmeal wafting throughout the kitchen and home is enough to tempt everyone’s taste buds.
The sight and smell of freshly baked honey cornbread gets everyone racing to the dinner table, and I don’t have to ring that dinner bell more than once.
In fact, they’re usually tasting sweet pinches of honey cornbread before they even sit down at the table.
Cast Iron Skillet Cornbread for hearty results
This honey cornbread is baked in a cast iron skillet, which gives it much more of a hearty and rustic quality. This is not an airy, light, cakey type cornbread, though it is sweet and tender. It’s a real cornbread-cornbread.
This skillet cornbread boasts a crumb that lets you know the goodness of old fashioned cornmeal is in every bite. It’s dense, rich, and moist. Not at all dry. This honey cornbread comes out beautifully thick, does not sink, and is wonderfully sweet and buttery.
Hint: right after this golden skillet cornbread comes out of the oven, smother the top with melty butter and serve while it’s warm; you’ll be dubbed the world’s most epic cornbread maker.
Fresh out of the oven with butter on top
Let’s re-emphasize the fact that honey cornbread is simply delectable when eaten freshly baked, still warm, with a drizzle or pat of butter on top to soak into the luscious bread. Drool worthy.
This cornbread is still great the next day, as long as it’s wrapped airtight and left at room temp. Give it a little microwave zap, wrapped well in damp paper towels, and it returns to melt-in-your-mouth delicious. I would recommend eating it all up within the first or second day. (Not a problem in our house!)
If you prefer to make sweet cornbread muffins, these ones are the ultimate favorite of ours…everyone who’s tasted them agree they are the best and moistest cornbread muffins around!
You may want to save this recipe, too:
Sweet Honey Cornbread
- Total Time: 29 minutes
- Yield: 10 1x
Description
This honey cornbread is tender and moist, while slightly crisp on the exterior, thanks to the cast iron skillet! Simply amazing fresh out of the oven. Perfect with chili, soups, stews, or BBQ!
Ingredients
- 1 cup yellow cornmeal
- 1 cup all purpose flour
- 1 TB baking powder
- 1/2 cup granulated sugar
- 1 tsp table salt
- 1 cup whole milk
- 2 large eggs, room temp
- 6 TB salted butter, melted
- 1/3 cup real honey
- 2 tsp real vanilla extract
- additional butter for drizzling or serving
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375F, with rack on lower-middle position. Grease your cast iron skillet and set aside.
- In a large bowl, combine cornmeal, flour, baking powder, sugar, and salt. Whisk together well.
- In a separate bowl, whisk together milk, eggs, butter, honey, and vanilla. Gently fold wet and dry ingredients together until just incorporated; do not over-mix or over work the batter.
- Pour batter into greased cast iron skillet and bake 20-30 minutes until golden brown (bake time will depend on size of your skillet.) If top browns too quickly, cover loosely with foil and continue baking. Be sure to start checking for doneness after 20 minutes. Cornbread is done when toothpick inserted in center has a couple of tender crumbs attached to it. Not completely clean, or it might turn out dry.
- Drizzle melted butter over the top, allowing it to soak into the cornbread, and serve while warm. Or serve with pats of softened butter on top.
- * For muffins, bake 13-15 minutes in lined muffin tins, just until toothpick comes out with tender crumbs attached.
Notes
If you enjoyed this skillet cornbread, please come back and give it a review 🙂
- Prep Time: 15 min
- Cook Time: 14 min
- Category: side dish
- Method: baking
- Cuisine: American
Keywords: sweet honey cornbread, skillet cornbread
My all-time favorite, never fail recipe for Sweet Cornbread Muffins that’s moist and tender every time is this recipe, adapted from Cooks Illustrated:
How about no-fail, crowd-pleasing Chunky Chili to go with the cornbread?
White Chicken Chili in the Slow Cooker is one of my favorite things to make for new moms, new friends, potlucks, etc. etc.
Anytime we have sweet cornbread, BBQ Baked Ribs are a perfect match. This one is oven-baked to perfection, so no need to fuss with the grill on a rainy day!
Oh yummy! This sweet honey cornbread looks so good! I’ll try it out.
I love cornbread. It’s on all of my holiday menus regardless of what else is being served
Same! It just goes with everything and is soooo good!
I love cornbread and now that the weather is getting cold, I need to bake some for my family
I love sweet cornbread! I am going to have to try this recipe out this Thanksgiving. I know it’s going to be good since it has honey in it.
I think you’re going to love it, Jasmine! 🙂
Omg, this cornbread looks absolutely amazing! I’m saving this for later – thank yoU!
This recipe is my family’s go to with chili every time! They beg for it! It’s moist and the sweet honey taste is perfect! AND making This cornbread in the iron skillet is the only way to go! It’s soooo amazing!
Thank youuuu!
Yay, I’m super happy your family enjoys this cornbread so much 🙂 Thank you sooo much for coming back to let us know! Happy continued cooking & baking!
Best cornbread ever. Honey gives it the perfect sweetness and baking it in the cast iron skillet gives it those crispy edges and makes it extra special in my opinion
★★★★★
So happy you loved this cornbread, Nicole
Can I substitute the Jiffy Corn Muffin mix for the dry ingredients? Stuck at home during pandemic and don’t have the cornmeal for the recipe.
Hi, Pat! For Jiffy and other pre-packaged cornbread mixes, I’d go ahead and follow the package instructions. You can add 1-2 TB honey to the mixture if you want the honey flavor, and just start testing for doneness 5 minutes prior to package suggestion 🙂
What size skillet does this recipe need? It does not specify
I typically use 9-10 inch; if you use a 10-inch check for doneness 5 minutes earlier. Enjoy! 🙂
I made this recipe as muffins. It is delicious. The amount of honey and vanilla add a great taste to the recipe.
★★★★★
We love them as muffins with honey as well! 🙂 🙂
I hardly ever rate things or comment on recipes, but, THIS. Was astounding. I’m so picky about cornbread (I feel like so many recipes are just so bland) and this was absolutely delicious!! I didn’t have whole milk on hand, so I did sub 1/2 cup heavy cream + 1/2 cup water, & I also drizzled honey lightly across the top as soon as the cornbread got out of the oven (I baked it in a regular pan also, I don’t own a cast iron skillet…. YET!). Regardless of the minor modifications, it turned out DELICIOUS. The absolute best cornbread recipe I’ve found yet!!!
★★★★★
I love a sweet cornbread… and this recipe just smacked it into the parking lot. Gonna save this one for sure. Thanx for posting this recipes. Taste …Texture and lift…damn
★★★★★
So happy you all enjoyed this recipe, Bobby!
This recipe is perfect! This was my first time making corn bread successfully. Will make again.
★★★★★
I have been making this recipe for years! I always get compliments and it is delicious!
★★★★★
That’s amazing, Daff, thank you!
I made this cornbread for my very difficult family who doesn’t like anything. They complain, no matter what people do. They all loved this cornbread and asked me to make more. My only recommendation is *if* you are serving it later in the day, do not put the honey and the butter on top UNTIL you are serving it (otherwise it will get soggy). I also doubled the recipe and put it in a gigantic 15 inch cast iron skillet. It made enough for 20. It was done in 22-25 min, I left it to 25 to be careful and it was perfect!
★★★★★
That’s amazing, so glad to hear they loved this!