For Perfectly Moist Cornbread Reach For One Ingredient

Having a slice of warm, buttered cornbread can make all of your worries fade away — at least momentarily. It's fluffy, moist, and slightly sweet, making it equally delicious on its own or while soaking up the flavors of your main dish. You may already be familiar with adding ingredients like maple syrup to make cornbread sweeter, but what about improving its texture? Bake it enough times and you'll find that being too dry is often cornbread's downfall. But one ingredient will give you such an effortlessly soft interior that people will think you're a baking wizz. Mayo.

Adding mayo to the wet ingredients will give your cornbread bread a moist and soft texture, while helping the outside develop crispy edges. Even if the outside looks a little browner once baked, the inside will be perfectly tender. Around ½ cup of mayo for a recipe of 12 servings is a good ratio. Although Duke's mayo is a popular choice, you can use any mayo you have — just make sure it's not fat free.

While it might sound odd to add this ingredient to your bread, there's a few reasons why it works. Mayo is essentially an emulsion of oil and egg yolks, with a few additional ingredients like acids and spices. It contains around 70-80% fat due to its high oil content, and fat equals moisture for your cornbread. Using mayo in baked goods like cakes or brownies for additional moisture is nothing new, and its flavor is neutral enough that you won't taste a difference. Plus, most of the ingredients found in mayo will overlap with your cornbread ingredients.

The oil emulsion will also coat the flour in your cornbread mixture, decreasing the usual gluten development. If your aim is soft and fluffy cornbread, less gluten development will help you achieve this. While mayo will definitely keep your cornbread moist, you also don't want to make the mistake of over mixing the batter. This will overwork the gluten and result in a dryer cornbread. A few lumps left in the batter is a good sign, as these will bring hydration to your bread while baking. So the next time you decide to make cornbread, don't forget to check how much mayo you have left in the jar.