The Easy One-Ingredient Cornbread Upgrade That Gives You A Soft, Fluffy Crumb

If you've ever wanted to have dessert with your dinner, cornbread may just be the delicious workaround you're looking for. A classic with hearty, spicy slow cooker beef chili, cornbread is also traditionally served alongside other comfort foods, such as barbecued meats and thick stews. It even frequently makes an appearance at the breakfast table, especially in the Southern United States, serving as a sweet counterpoint to rich bacon and beautifully overstuffed omelets.

These golden squares of nutty deliciousness aren't usually the first thing people think of when listing comfort foods, but few people turn it down, especially when it's baked well. Many insist a preheated cast iron skillet is the best way to get crisp, tender cornbread, and they're not wrong. However, any cooking method can produce dry, crumbly, disappointing results if your ratios are off or if your cornbread cooks for just a little too long. To remedy this, some enterprising home cooks have turned to a surprising secret weapon — boxed cake mix.

Mixing together equal parts boxed cornbread mix with your favorite cake mix is just one of many ways to upgrade ordinary cornbread mix, but it's arguably one of the best ones. The cake mix helps create a fluffier, tighter crumb by making the cornbread mix less dense and adding a little bit more leavening and fat. The result is a little bit sweeter than more traditional scratch recipes, but that sweetness is easily tempered with a little butter and a bath in some meaty, spicy chili.

Choices for what kind of cake mix to blend into your cornbread may at first seem limited to options with subtle flavors, like yellow cake, white cake, or vanilla cake (yes, white cake and vanilla are different). However, if you really think about the flavor profile in traditional cornbread and the meals with which it's typically served, it becomes clear that there are more tasty and creative options available. For instance, wouldn't a spice cake cornbread be incredible under a saucy serving of pulled chicken or pork? The spices in the cornbread would blend with the spices in the barbecue for an even bigger flavor.

Considering flavors this way not only opens up more possibilities but offers an opportunity to tailor the kind of cornbread you make to what you're serving. A carrot cake mix might create the perfect cornbread to go with a traditional Thanksgiving dinner or weekend spread of roasted chicken and green beans. Meanwhile, slightly sweeter mixes like butterscotch or lemon cake could become everyone's new favorite holiday breakfast pastry — especially if you cook your cornbread in a waffle maker.

Of course, not all cake mix flavors will work well for this hack. Chocolate, for instance, will only overpower the flavors in the cornbread, leaving you with a rather lackluster popcorn-flavored chocolate cake. Strawberry or confetti cake mixes are also out, as they're too sweet and playful enough to place your cornbread squarely in dessert territory — unless, of course, that's what you're going for.