Failure, heartache, and heartbreak are what it takes to create a new take on a classic recipe. Join Rachel Gurjar in the Bon Appétit Test Kitchen as she spends two days creating the perfect cheesy cornbread–a recipe that took 80 servings to get right.
You can check out Rachel's upside-down cornbread recipe here: https://bonappetit.com/recipe/upside-down-cornbread
You can check out Rachel's upside-down cornbread recipe here: https://bonappetit.com/recipe/upside-down-cornbread
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00 You have a lot of failures and heartbreaks
00:02 and heartaches in recipe development.
00:05 I've spent the last two days making 80 pieces of cornbread,
00:15 a puddle of lava cake, so that I could arrive at this.
00:19 Every recipe I develop can be nerve-wracking
00:21 because I want it to be really good, I want it to work,
00:25 I don't want people to waste their time,
00:27 their energy, their money, I like to take it very seriously.
00:31 A big part of my job is coming up with recipes
00:35 and failing multiple times here so that you don't have to.
00:38 And today I'm gonna show you how I developed
00:40 my cheesy upside down showstopper cornbread.
00:43 I'm gonna take some creative liberties
00:47 and I wanna do like an upside down caramel cornbread,
00:51 where you flip the cornbread over
00:53 and you have like a beautiful studded layer of corn on top.
00:58 This version doesn't really exist on the internet,
01:01 so I'm curious to see just as a recipe developer,
01:04 how that's gonna turn out, how it's gonna taste,
01:06 is it gonna work, am I gonna fail miserably, I don't know.
01:10 The perfect cheesy cornbread to me is fluffy, it's moist,
01:14 so we wanna make sure that the crumb
01:16 on the cornbread is perfect,
01:17 you have those crispy edges all around, not too sweet,
01:21 leaning towards the savory side.
01:22 And I also wanna make sure that it has sufficient height,
01:26 so at least two inches.
01:27 We're gonna make two base versions,
01:29 one's gonna have the Jiffy mix,
01:31 and the other version is going to have our own mixture
01:34 with AP flour and cornmeal.
01:36 It is great to have a direct comparison
01:38 of how two different things will work
01:42 when put to the same application.
01:44 I'm trying to see if the payoff is the same,
01:48 what's most convenient
01:49 and what brings the most value to the recipe.
01:52 So I'm gonna start by mixing the wet ingredients
01:54 for the version where I'm using the pre-made Jiffy mix.
01:58 For the corn pudding recipe that already exists,
02:01 it uses about three eggs,
02:02 but I think that would make the cornbread a tad too wet,
02:06 so I'm going with two eggs.
02:07 I'm going to do about half a cup of sour cream.
02:10 Sour cream adds enough fat
02:13 and it adds just a slight hint of tang.
02:15 So I need to melt some butter,
02:18 so we're gonna do it quickly in the microwave.
02:20 The most labor-inducing part of this recipe
02:23 is grating the cheese.
02:25 This is the wet batter for the Jiffy mixture,
02:27 and now I'm going to make the same wet batter
02:29 for my own mix.
02:30 I think I'm gonna add a little bit of milk.
02:35 Once dry ingredients go into this,
02:37 this batter is gonna get even thicker,
02:39 and I think it's gonna be too dry.
02:41 And that's recipe development.
02:43 Nothing is fixed.
02:44 You literally just have to do things on the fly.
02:47 I want to now start adding the dry ingredients in here.
02:51 I decided to try out Jiffy's
02:52 because it's available everywhere,
02:55 and I never want you to buy a whole bag of something
03:00 if it's not adding lots of value to it,
03:02 and then for it to be lying in your pantry
03:05 for years to come.
03:06 And then we're gonna add light brown sugar,
03:09 about a fourth of a cup, packed.
03:11 Light brown sugar has molasses,
03:13 and that makes any baked good chewy and moist.
03:16 I think I'm gonna need to add just a little bit more milk.
03:21 Okay, so I'm gonna add a fourth of a cup.
03:24 That is total of three fourths of a cup.
03:26 I'm gonna prep these two
03:27 so that we can get this mixture in ready to go,
03:30 and I think I want to bake mine
03:33 somewhere around 350 or 375.
03:36 The first one's going in.
03:38 This is using our Jiffy cornbread mixture.
03:43 I'm gonna set my timer for 30 minutes.
03:46 And next, let's weigh out our dry ingredients
03:50 for the version where I mix my own little cornbread mixture.
03:55 I'm using all-purpose flour.
03:56 That is gonna be four ounces.
03:59 And then we have cornmeal.
04:01 The Jiffy is 8.5 ounces,
04:04 so I'm trying to make sure that I have 8.5 ounces here too
04:08 with my own mixture,
04:09 and that way the ratio from the wet ingredients
04:12 to the dry ingredients will remain the same.
04:14 Half a teaspoon of baking powder
04:16 and half a teaspoon of baking soda.
04:18 The way my mix and the Jiffy mix varies
04:21 is that the Jiffy mix has a ton of additives
04:24 and preservatives in it,
04:25 whereas my mix is just these ingredients that you see here.
04:29 Oh, (beep)
04:30 I wanted to add garlic powder.
04:33 All right, you know what we're gonna do?
04:34 We're gonna add garlic powder in this version
04:36 and then see the difference in how they both taste.
04:38 I like garlic, actually.
04:40 I'm a garlic girl.
04:42 Just half a teaspoon,
04:43 so it'll be super subtle.
04:45 The light brown sugar.
04:46 Adding the extra 1/4 cup of milk to loosen this up as well.
04:51 Fingers crossed it cooks all the way through.
04:54 The timer just went off,
04:55 so it's time to remove the Jiffy version.
04:58 Ooh, I think it looks good.
05:02 Clean cake tester means it's cooked all the way through.
05:10 Great.
05:11 (timer beeping)
05:12 It's going.
05:13 (timer beeping)
05:13 My mix, oh my God.
05:16 She looks so good.
05:17 I'm just gonna label these so I don't get confused.
05:24 My mix, Jiffy mix.
05:27 It is the moment of truth.
05:29 Honestly, I feel like this could have been double the height.
05:34 It's like a little over one inch
05:38 and that is not satisfactory.
05:41 I definitely think that it could be a little bit more cheesy.
05:45 If you're gonna call this cheesy cornbread,
05:48 then I really need to taste the cheese.
05:51 I think it has too much fat
05:53 because I can feel that it is sinking to the bottom.
05:57 I do like that it's not too sweet,
05:59 but this version needs work.
06:02 I'm going to try mine now.
06:04 It looks good on the outside.
06:06 I'm really happy with the color on this.
06:08 Yeah, this is an inch and five, the same as that one.
06:12 Oh, okay.
06:15 This one looks better.
06:16 I like how separated the crumbs are in this.
06:19 See the difference?
06:21 Like you don't see this like pooling of fat here
06:26 like you see in this version.
06:28 It almost feels like the butter and the fat
06:31 like really absorbed well with the flour and corn.
06:34 This needs to be a little bit sweeter,
06:37 more cheesy and more salt.
06:39 So everything just pumped up.
06:42 Hannah?
06:43 - Yes.
06:44 - Do you want to come try these?
06:45 - Sure.
06:46 - This one I made my own mixture.
06:48 All the wet ingredients are the same,
06:50 but the dry ingredients differ.
06:53 - If this is going to be a cheesy cornbread,
06:55 I wouldn't even mind like a little bit more.
06:57 I also wouldn't mind a slightly less baked final product.
07:03 It's like bordering on like dry,
07:05 but I really like the flavors.
07:07 I just want more flavors.
07:08 - More flavors.
07:09 The big question before I started developing
07:11 this cornbread recipe was whether the Jiffy mix
07:15 is going to hold up to like a homemade mix.
07:20 And I think that it did not.
07:23 I think there is definitely value in making your own mix.
07:28 And I think that's what I'm going to stick with.
07:31 So I used only four ounces of flour.
07:35 I'm going to double that right now
07:37 because I want our cornbread to be thick.
07:40 So we're going to do one cup all-purpose flour,
07:43 one cup of cornmeal.
07:45 We're going to grate cheese again.
07:48 I did four ounces before,
07:49 and now I'm going to see how much six ounces looks.
07:52 Honestly, I think I'm just going to go with eight.
07:54 I mean, it has to be cheesy.
07:56 It's a cheesy cornbread.
07:57 I'm going to add the baking soda and baking powder now.
08:01 I need to up the leaveners a bit
08:03 because we are increasing all of the ingredients.
08:06 So there needs to be enough for everything to rise.
08:08 Two teaspoons of kosher salt.
08:11 Initially we did one,
08:12 and I think that was not enough at all.
08:15 Now I'm going to put together the wet ingredients.
08:17 So three eggs this time,
08:19 because we're increasing the dry ingredients.
08:22 If there's less egg,
08:23 there's a chance that this might not set.
08:26 So initially I added half a cup of sour cream
08:28 and I'm going to up it to three-fourth cup.
08:31 So I'm going to up the sugar to three-fourth cup.
08:34 This I'm going to weigh.
08:36 I want to get the measurement in grams
08:38 just so that we're hyper accurate.
08:40 It could mess with the texture.
08:42 It could mess with how quickly the cornbread is browning.
08:45 It could mess with like how charred the edges get.
08:48 And I want to make sure that all of the chunky bits
08:51 are broken down.
08:53 You don't want to over mix this
08:54 because that might affect how the gluten bakes
08:59 and I don't want it to be tough.
09:00 So you have to mix just until the batter comes together.
09:04 I think it looks good.
09:06 And I've decided that I'm skipping garlic.
09:08 I want the base recipe to be kind of close to the classic.
09:13 And the classic does not have garlic.
09:16 I'm going to put a tray underneath this
09:19 in case it spills over.
09:21 Based on what Hannah said,
09:23 I'm going to cook it at a higher temperature,
09:26 but for lesser time.
09:27 The oven is at 400 degrees
09:29 and I'm setting my timer for 25 minutes.
09:32 Before it was a 360 for like 35 minutes.
09:36 We'll see.
09:37 It's important to have an oven thermometer
09:41 just to double check.
09:42 This oven says 425, but it's actually at 360.
09:46 I'm worried that it's not going to rise well
09:48 and brown evenly.
09:49 I think I'm going to turn it up
09:51 to see if we can bring up the temperature
09:54 to what it's supposed to be at.
09:55 So I'm just going to turn it up to 450
09:59 and see if that makes it rise to 400,
10:03 which is actually what we want.
10:05 We have about two to three minutes left,
10:07 but I'm not going to wait.
10:08 I'm just going to get it out of the oven
10:10 because it's browning so quickly.
10:12 Oh no, I can't get it out of the oven
10:15 because the center is still super jiggly.
10:19 Actually, no, it's done.
10:20 Let's take it out.
10:21 Let's see what happens.
10:23 I think it's sunk in the center
10:26 because of the oven temperature not being right.
10:29 And then maybe there was too much baking soda
10:33 or baking powder, so I might reduce that in the next one.
10:37 I don't even want to call it the pumped version
10:39 because this is the deflated version.
10:42 This is what recipe development will do to you.
10:45 I'm quite upset right now.
10:47 See, it's not.
10:49 (dramatic music)
10:52 Okay.
10:54 (clapping)
10:57 Oh my God.
10:58 Did you see that happen?
11:02 It's literally breathing.
11:05 Come on.
11:05 The skewer failed me.
11:10 I'm still going to try the parts that are cooked
11:13 and I do want a second opinion to see what happened here.
11:18 So I'm going to call Jessie over
11:19 and we're going to try this disaster
11:22 and then go from there.
11:24 Jessie, you literally have a cookie book book out,
11:29 so I trust your opinion.
11:31 - It's like a lava cake.
11:33 These ovens have been brutal lately.
11:36 - Yeah.
11:37 - So I feel like this probably went in a hot oven
11:38 and then it got cold.
11:40 - Yeah.
11:41 - I think the flavor is actually really good.
11:45 I like the texture.
11:47 It's like not too cakey, but not too bready.
11:49 - I think from this edge,
11:50 this is actually my favorite by far so far.
11:53 Would you ever try 325?
11:56 So it stays like plush all around.
11:59 - But it would be a little bit longer
12:00 'cause this was only 25 minutes.
12:03 - 40 minutes, maybe.
12:04 - 40 minutes.
12:05 Let's go again.
12:06 - I think you're close.
12:08 - Let's call it the low and slow.
12:10 For this next bake, I'm going to use a different oven
12:14 and I'm going to change the time and temperature.
12:16 So I'm going to do it low and slow and see what happens.
12:21 We're setting it to 400,
12:23 but only because I want to see
12:25 how far up the temperature is going to go.
12:27 And we have another thermometer in there,
12:30 which is going to give us an hopefully accurate reading.
12:35 I'm keeping all of the other ingredients the same.
12:38 I think a lot of recipe development
12:40 feels like Groundhog Day.
12:42 We are doing the same thing over and over again.
12:45 Dry ingredients are done.
12:46 Do the wet ingredients now.
12:49 I set three ovens.
12:53 This says 325 and that says 360.
12:58 So who should I believe?
13:01 This oven is gaslighting me.
13:03 We found one oven that's holding its temperature to 325.
13:06 So I'm going to mix the dry ingredients
13:09 and then get this in the oven.
13:12 I'm baking it in the oven at 325 for about 40 minutes.
13:16 So really low and slow.
13:18 Oh my God.
13:20 Oh my God, it's spilling.
13:25 It's literally spilling.
13:27 I think I need to reduce half a cup of milk.
13:29 So baking it at 325,
13:32 I do think that it's like giving it a slower rise,
13:35 which is like giving it more of a rise
13:37 and it's spilling out.
13:38 Oh no, that...
13:41 She's crunchy.
13:42 It's clean.
13:45 I'm going to label this one.
13:46 This is about close to two inches.
13:50 So we've achieved that.
13:52 And also here, you can see that the sugars
13:54 have accumulated on top
13:56 and you have this really rough texture on top
13:58 and that's not what I want.
14:00 Let's cut into it and see where we are.
14:03 I think that I need to definitely reduce
14:07 some of the liquid in here,
14:09 keeping in mind how much dry ingredients are increased.
14:12 I don't think that there was still enough dry ingredients
14:15 to absorb everything.
14:17 You do get a nice little cheese pull
14:19 while it's warm in here, which is great.
14:22 I like the flavor.
14:25 Perfect balance between sweet and salty.
14:29 I wanted it to be closer to more like a savory cornbread
14:33 and I think it's achieving that.
14:35 I'm going back to 350
14:37 because the first version where I used my mix
14:41 gave me that perfect little dome
14:44 without it sinking in the middle
14:46 and that's what I want to achieve here.
14:48 And tomorrow I'm going to work on my honey butter
14:51 and also a really fun version
14:55 which will be an upside down cornbread
14:58 if it allows.
15:02 So there's lots to do,
15:03 but you know, I'm going to get some sleep.
15:08 Think about this and come back.
15:10 Good morning, New York.
15:11 It's a beautiful sunny day outside.
15:14 Just the best.
15:15 Day two better be good to me.
15:17 I think today's the day.
15:19 I think it's going to happen.
15:21 Let's call this the balanced version
15:22 and if it doesn't work out
15:24 then I'll call it the unbalanced version.
15:26 I think I'm going to do a weight measurement for this.
15:29 It ensures accuracy.
15:31 153 grams of AP flour,
15:33 153 grams of cornmeal.
15:37 I want to take down the baking soda
15:41 because yesterday there was some overflow.
15:43 So I definitely need to reduce the amount of liquid.
15:46 I'm reducing one of the eggs and sour cream.
15:50 Half a cup only.
15:51 It's because I don't want a super greasy cake.
15:55 It is a little less wetter, which is great.
15:58 I think this is the one.
16:00 It's going to work.
16:01 The oven looks perfect.
16:04 Hope it holds the temperature.
16:06 Let's mix this batter and get the bread in the oven.
16:09 I added a cup of milk in the low and slow version
16:13 and I'm reducing that by half.
16:14 There's enough gap here
16:16 so I know it'll have like room to puff up
16:19 and the batter feels thicker
16:21 so it's not too loose like it was yesterday.
16:25 I have my oven at 350,
16:27 which is 25 degrees higher than what it was yesterday.
16:30 My cornbread is in the oven and while that's happening,
16:33 I'm going to make our hot honey butter.
16:36 We have a great hot honey butter recipe
16:38 on the site by Claire.
16:39 So that's what I'm going to use today.
16:41 Going to flash this for about 10, 15 seconds.
16:44 Half a cup of almost room temperature butter
16:48 and about three tablespoons of honey.
16:51 I'm using crystal hot sauce.
16:53 You could use any hot sauce,
16:55 but I like using something that's super vinegary and punchy
17:00 Whisk it all together.
17:02 A little sprinkle of kosher salt and this is great.
17:07 We're done.
17:07 People can spread it on the bread as they eat.
17:11 It's been 40 minutes.
17:13 So I'm going to check this bread to see where it's at.
17:16 It's still shaking in the center just a little bit
17:20 and I don't want to take any chances.
17:23 So we're going to let that bake for another five minutes
17:25 just to be safe.
17:27 I think this looks perfect.
17:30 Clean.
17:34 Thank you.
17:36 I think this looks so good.
17:38 I'm very happy right now.
17:40 Should I name this the winner?
17:42 Oh, it's too early for that.
17:44 The bread has been cooling down for about 25 minutes
17:49 and I'm going to run my knife and flip it over
17:52 so we can see what's going on inside.
17:56 (knife thuds)
17:59 Yes!
17:59 It is perfectly golden brown all around
18:03 and that makes me so happy.
18:04 - The color is perfect.
18:05 - Yeah.
18:06 - I think it's like a really good in-between
18:08 of like dark tan, but not too tan.
18:10 - So I wanted to achieve like at least two inches and...
18:14 - It's exactly two inches.
18:16 - It's exactly two inches.
18:17 - Okay.
18:20 That looks perfect.
18:21 That looks perfect.
18:22 That texture looks incredible.
18:24 - I think dense is seen as a bad thing,
18:26 but some cakes you want a density
18:28 and this is dense, but still like open and fluffy.
18:31 It tastes like cheese, but it's not like intense cheese
18:35 in an overpowering way or like funky way.
18:38 - And I made hot honey butter.
18:40 - Oh my gosh.
18:41 - Do you want to try it with that?
18:43 - That's it.
18:44 It's nice and bright.
18:45 - I think this is such a great base
18:48 in terms of flavor, texture, color.
18:51 - Nice.
18:52 - Next, I'm going to try an upside down version.
18:55 I'm going to add corn here.
18:56 - Okay.
18:57 - Then a caramel and then the batter.
18:59 - Like corn kernels?
19:00 - Yes.
19:01 - Okay, this is cool.
19:02 I'm into it.
19:03 - The winner.
19:03 She won.
19:05 She arrived.
19:06 Let's make cornbread again.
19:08 I'm going to start mixing my dry and wet ingredients
19:12 and then we're going to make the caramel.
19:14 I'm going to let this hang out for a bit
19:16 and then prep my cake pan.
19:21 I think aesthetically this might look prettier.
19:25 That's why I'm going for this.
19:26 I have a parchment paper here
19:27 which I'm going to cut into a square.
19:29 It's just so that the kernels don't stick to the actual pan
19:32 and we can have an easy flip.
19:34 And then make a little triangle like this.
19:37 And then I'm going to flip this over
19:40 and measure it from the center
19:42 so we know exactly where to cut.
19:44 This is what you get.
19:46 Perfect circle.
19:50 If these are very yellow, then I might use fresh.
19:52 If these are not super yellow, then maybe not.
19:56 Do you think I should use fresh corn or canned corn?
19:59 Canned kernels are going to be more prettier.
20:02 Yeah, I think I'm going to go with canned.
20:05 Just going to take that in my hand
20:06 and squeeze out any excess water.
20:09 Not too hard though
20:11 'cause I don't want to destroy the kernels.
20:14 And then I'm taking paper towels
20:16 and just dabbing any excess liquid out.
20:19 I'm going to take about one cup of kernels
20:21 and spread it evenly at the bottom of this cake pan.
20:24 Just want to make sure that the entire bottom is covered.
20:27 So now we're going to go make the caramel.
20:29 I have an upside down plum cake recipe.
20:33 And in that I used half a cup of sugar
20:37 and three tablespoons of water.
20:38 So that's the ratio I'm using.
20:40 I'm going to do about one teaspoon of kosher salt in this.
20:45 And the thing with caramel is that
20:47 you don't have to touch it.
20:48 You just got to let it do its thing.
20:51 That needs to keep going for about seven to eight minutes.
20:55 Our caramel is basically done.
20:57 It's nice and golden.
20:59 You want to make sure that it goes everywhere on the corn.
21:02 Once this heats up, it's going to like spread out everywhere.
21:06 Now I'm going to mix our dry ingredients
21:08 in our wet ingredients here.
21:11 Pour this batter evenly all over the corn.
21:14 Once you pour the batter in,
21:16 just take the cake pan and tap it.
21:18 That way, if there are any air bubbles on the bottom,
21:22 they're going to get filled out with the batter.
21:25 And now we're going to go and bake this.
21:28 So it's been going for about 40 minutes at 350.
21:32 It's clean, but we're going to go for like three more minutes.
21:40 I think it's ready.
21:42 She is gorgeous.
21:44 I do need to let it cool for about 10 to 15 minutes,
21:48 and then we'll flip it over and do the reveal.
21:52 Oh my God.
21:53 That looks amazing.
21:59 I'm not going to lie.
22:00 I thought that the corners were going to be yellow,
22:02 but this is even better because it looks so caramelized.
22:06 It's beautiful.
22:07 Jessie!
22:08 - Okay.
22:10 Not what I was expecting, but it's beautiful.
22:12 - It's crazy how well it worked.
22:14 - Right?
22:15 - It came out perfect.
22:16 - It did.
22:17 - Okay.
22:18 - Wait.
22:19 - That does look perfect.
22:20 That looks really good.
22:21 - So I'm going to put a dollop of the hot honey butter
22:24 on that slice.
22:25 - It's so good.
22:28 - It is so good.
22:30 - It's really good because the caramel's like taken very far.
22:33 So it's like not too sweet, smoky.
22:35 It's really good.
22:36 It's like the best spot for caramel to live.
22:39 - This is a showstopper.
22:40 - She's a local.
22:41 - She's a local.
22:42 - She's a star.
22:43 - Thank you, Jessie.
22:44 - No, thank you.
22:45 - For being my sounding board today.
22:47 - This is like the only fun I had on this rainy day.
22:49 So thank you.
22:50 - You can have that.
22:51 - I'm a ticket.
22:52 - Yes.
22:53 After so many iterations, this is the one.
22:56 She is so fluffy and cheesy and caramelly.
23:01 Very unexpected, but delicious.
23:04 I'm so thrilled I took this journey
23:05 and that I've arrived.
23:09 This is my cheesy upside down showstopper cornbread.
23:12 I lost sleep over this recipe.
23:15 No two bakes are the same.
23:18 No day is the same.
23:19 We get to cook different things
23:21 and we get to make them delicious and ready
23:23 so that you can cook them at home as well.
23:26 The work doesn't stop here.
23:27 I'm going to type it up and send it to a cross tester.
23:30 Then it's gonna get edited and photographed.
23:33 And by the time you watch this,
23:34 this will already be uploaded on our website.
23:37 (orchestral music)
23:39 [BLANK_AUDIO]