Recipe · Dessert · American South
Brown-Butter Cornmeal Cake
A one-bowl Sunday cake with toasty cornmeal, citrus, and just enough butter to remember it tastes like butter.
Cornmeal cake is the dessert equivalent of a workhorse pickup truck: unfussy, dependable, and quietly capable of carrying you through nearly any meal. We make this version when peaches show up at the market in July and when blood oranges arrive in February, and it has never disappointed us in either season.
Ingredients
- 1 cup unsalted butter, plus extra for the pan
- 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
- 3/4 cup fine yellow cornmeal
- 1 1/4 cups granulated sugar
- 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp fine sea salt
- 3 large eggs, room temperature
- 3/4 cup whole milk
- 1 tbsp lemon zest, finely grated
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- 2 tbsp turbinado sugar, for the top (optional)
Equipment
- 9-inch round cake pan
- Heavy-bottomed saucepan
- Microplane
Directions
Heat the oven to 350°F (175°C). Butter a 9-inch round cake pan and line the bottom with a circle of parchment.
Melt the butter in a heavy-bottomed saucepan over medium heat. Keep it moving once it starts foaming. After 5-7 minutes, the foam will subside and the milk solids on the bottom will turn deep amber and smell like toasted hazelnuts. Pull it off the heat immediately and pour it -- brown bits and all -- into a heatproof bowl. Let it cool to barely-warm.
Whisk the flour, cornmeal, granulated sugar, baking powder, and salt together in a large bowl.
Whisk the eggs, milk, lemon zest, and vanilla into the cooled brown butter.
Pour the wet into the dry and fold with a spatula until just combined. The batter should look like loose porridge with no streaks of flour. Stop folding.
Scrape into the prepared pan and smooth the top. Sprinkle the turbinado over the surface if you want a crackly top.
Bake for 32-38 minutes. The cake is done when a skewer comes out with a few moist crumbs and the edges have pulled away from the pan. Cool in the pan for 15 minutes, then turn out onto a rack.
Cook's notes
Make ahead. The cake keeps three days at room temp under a cake dome. The flavor deepens overnight.
Substitutions. Orange zest works in place of lemon. A splash of bourbon instead of the vanilla is excellent. Don't substitute the cornmeal -- it's the whole point.
What if the butter scorches. If the milk solids go black instead of amber, start over. Burnt butter tastes burnt all the way through.
Make-ahead & storage
The cake actually gets better on day two -- the cornmeal hydrates fully and the brown-butter flavor settles. Bake the day before you need it and you'll be the smartest person at the table.
Nutrition (per serving)
Calories: 320 · Protein: 5g · Carbs: 40g · Fat: 16g
Estimated. Actual values vary with substitutions.
Source: Adapted from our own kitchen over many cornmeal cakes that came out wrong before this one came out right.