Mom’s Southern Cornbread Recipe – Gluten Free
There are certain foods from childhood that evoke a sense of comfort, of home, of mom. For me, my mom’s southern cornbread recipe is one of them. Not just any cornbread, mind you–it must be my mother’s cornbread, made with yellow cornmeal (and an ungodly amount of butter). If my memory serves me correctly, she got the recipe from a southerner when she and my dad were living in Alabama in the 70s. In texture and taste it’s about the exact opposite of the sweet, cakey cornbread that’s served at Marie Calendar’s. It’s denser, with not a lot of sugar, and it actually tastes like corn.
Jump to RecipeMom would serve it frequently in summer, alongside platters of succulent ribs or barbecued chicken. It was just the thing to help sop up the tangy sauce left on the plate. We’d always drizzle honey over our second slice, the sweet syrup soaking into the crumb making it taste almost like dessert.
When I got married, this recipe was one my mom included in a hand-written recipe notebook she gave to me. I’ve tried others over the years, especially when I went through my fear-of-butter phase, but none compared. They didn’t even come close. So now I turn to my splattered and well-loved notebook whenever I want to make my mom’s southern cornbread recipe. Blessedly her old recipe works perfectly with my gluten-free flour blend. Of course, it works with regular all purpose flour too if you aren’t gluten free. Just omit the xanthan gum.
HERE ARE MORE RECIPES PERFECT FOR SUMMER BBQs:
If you make this recipe, or any of my others be sure to drop a comment and star rating below, tag me on Instagram, and use the hashtags #agirldefloured #deflouredrecipes! Thank you!
Mom’s Southern Cornbread Recipe (Gluten Free)
Equipment
- 9" Cast Iron Skillet (a cake pan or square baking pan works fine too)
Ingredients
- 1½ cups yellow corn meal certified gluten free
- 1 cup Bob’s Red Mill 1 to 1 or other gf flour blend of your choice
- ⅓ cup sugar
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 tablespoon baking powder
- ¼ teaspoon xanthan gum omit if your flour blend already contains it
- 2 eggs
- 14 tablespoons melted butter see…I told you it was a lot!
- 1½ cups whole milk
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 400 degrees and grease a 9×9 inch baking pan or 9″ cast iron skillet.
- Whisk dry ingredients together in a large mixing bowl. Add eggs, melted butter and milk and whisk until smooth.
- Pour into the prepared pan and bake for 30 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean.
I adore a good cornbread but am dealing with both gluten (mine) and dairy (my newborn) allergies right now. (Not to mention my usual vegetarian lifestyle, so there will be no sopping up of the ribs juices here! Lol) Is there a way to successfully make this without dairy? Can I substitute one of the many almond, rice, coconut, soy, etc milks and butters? Hopeful… Thanks.
Yes! Substitute away. For the dairy, I’d swap a plain style non-dairy milk such as rice. For the butter, some dairy free buttery sticks will work. 🙂
Can I add sugar or sugar substitute to make it a sweet cornbread without ruining the way it turns out? My mom always made her cornbread sweet and called it Johnny Cake even though she was from Boston. I am not a baker so I have no clue as to how to make it work.
There is sugar in this recipe..but it is definitely not as sweet as Marie Callendar’s. You can try to add more, but realize that this cornbread is the dense variety, not light and fluffy. 🙂
Made this tonight with my own variation. I doubled it and instead of using flour I used Gluten Free yellow cake mix, used the same amount of sugar plus 3 tablespoons and then drizzled honey in the mixture before baking. It came out PERFECT ! My kids aren’t going to have room for dinner because they keep stealing pieces of cornbread !
this is (by far) the BEST cornbread recipe ever. and yes, i’m including the gluten ones even. so happy to have found it. you do good things here!
Love, love, LOVE this recipe!!!
Me too!
Doesn’t Bob Mills 1:1 have xantham already in it? I saw the note, but I wanna be sure. I’m omitting the gum because 1:1 has it blended in already, correct?
Correct – Bob’s already has it so you don’t need to add any extra! 🙂
The best cornbread, ever!!
If I used buttermilk instead of whole milk how much would I use?
Great question – I’ve swapped out milk for buttermilk in equal measure and it worked perfectly 🙂