Make Boxed Cornbread 10x Richer And Moister By Adding One Staple From Your Fridge

Cornbread is easy to love. This quick bread has great flavor, is easy to make, and goes with tons of foods. When you see that golden-brown piece of cornbread on your plate, you can't help but get excited for that first bite. However, if it's dry and tasteless, it can be a bit of a letdown (okay, that's a big letdown). One way to get extra-moist cornbread with rich, delicious flavor is with a simple ingredient you might already have in your fridge: heavy whipping cream.

A basic cornbread recipe uses cornmeal, flour, baking powder, sugar, salt, milk, eggs, and oil (though there are other ways to make it — Dolly Parton only used three ingredients in hers). In most cornbread recipes, you get moisture from the milk and eggs. The same goes for boxed cornbread, and boxed corn muffin mixes, that only require milk and eggs. Boxed mixes are great time savers and make great cornbread, plus you can keep them on hand in the pantry for a last-minute meal, but if you swap out the milk for heavy whipping cream (not regular whipping cream), you get a moister, richer dish that tastes more like made-from-scratch cornbread.

A box of Jiffy Mix calls for ⅓ cup of milk, but for this hack, use ⅔ cup of heavy whipping cream. Heavy whipping cream contains more butterfat than regular milk. Whole milk, which has the most fat, contains 3.5% butterfat while heavy whipping cream has a whopping 36%. The lower the fat, the lower the richness a dairy product brings to foods and beverages.

There are lots of ways you can improve a basic cornbread, including greasing the baking pan with butter (which has at least 80% butterfat) instead of shortening. From there, you can get creative with additional ingredients. There are plenty of recipes out there to turn it into a sweet-and-savory delight, for example, but cornbread goes with just about everything.

Some ingredients, such as shredded cheddar cheese, go great with the creaminess of heavy whipping cream. If you want to make cornbread the star of breakfast, mix in some ham and broccoli to go with that cheese. If you want spicy cornbread, add some sliced or diced jalapeños to the mix; the heavy whipping cream helps neutralize some of the peppers' heat so it's not too intense. You can also boost the corn flavor by adding some corn kernels. It's pretty hard to think of an ingredient that doesn't give you tasty cornbread once you amp up the richness and moisture with heavy whipping cream, so have fun exploring your options.

While heavy whipping cream ups the moisture and richness, you can take that even further by slicing a piece of cornbread in half and slathering it with butter before you serve it. If you're setting the whole pan out on the table, an easier way to get that buttery taste — and a glistening top — is to spread a light layer of butter on top of the cornbread when it comes out of the oven. If the cornbread is still hot, the butter soaks right in. You can even use the inside of the wrapper from the butter you greased the pan with.