Why You Should Always Make 2 Boxes Of Jiffy Cornbread At Once

Even if you know how to make everything from scratch, that doesn't mean you should have to cook every part of a recipe by hand from start to finish. There are plenty of ways to doctor up a boxed cake mix (like using brown butter, for example) or add extras to a box of macaroni and cheese to make a fabulous meal in no time, and the same is true for boxed cornbread mix. Perhaps no brand of cornbread or muffin mix is more widely known than Jiffy — it literally says "America's Favorite" right on the box. The only problem with Jiffy's mix is that there just isn't enough in each box. If you want to jazz up your cornbread with a few extra ingredients, it's always better to make two boxes of Jiffy at the same time so that your additions don't change the moisture or texture of the mix too much.

Cornbread made from two boxes of mix is not only easier to alter in terms of ingredients, it's also easier to make in different forms. If you haven't noticed, Jiffy comes in a pretty small box, which only makes enough mix for a small pan. If you make two boxes, you can make a bread that's double-thick or spread it out across a larger pan so everyone can have an extra piece.

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Think Of Your Boxed Mix As An Ingredient

The nice thing about keeping a few boxes of Jiffy in the pantry is that you can have cornbread at any time. Of course, you can follow all the directions and get a passable product, but it's also extremely adaptable. Think of Jiffy mix less like a finished product and more like an ingredient. The basic makeup of what's in the box creates a blank slate that's guaranteed to rise, sort of like self-rising flour. People have been known to add all kinds of extras to the mix like sour cream, yogurt, olive oil, extra eggs, milk, honey, and even maple syrup to create an elevated cornbread that comes together quickly.

You don't want to tweak things too much, though, or you may upset the delicate balance of dry-to-wet ingredients, which will change how well the leaveners works. Scaling baking recipes is not linear, and it's pretty easy to go overboard if you're only working with a single box of Jiffy, which contains 8.5 ounces of dry mix, or about 1½ cups. With a volume that small, even an extra tablespoon of milk or oil can keep your batter from rising because there's only a small amount of baking powder and flour in the box. When you use two boxes, however, there are more leaveners to work with and a little more leeway in terms of how many extra ingredients you can use.

More Cornbread Is Always Better

If you take a minute to search the internet for Jiffy-based cornbread recipes with extra ingredients, you'll notice right away that almost all of them recommend using two boxes. This is most likely because it's easier to change the recipe with a larger volume of mix; however, it's also just easier to bake more cornbread. A single box of Jiffy fits in a standard 8x8-inch pan, which is pretty small. It only takes a few minutes to over-bake a tiny batch of cornbread, and even if you don't burn it, the bread may come out dry. Double batches, on the other hand, can go in a 9x13-inch pan and are a little more forgiving in the oven.

If you're really worried about making too much with a double batch, don't stress — there are lots of ways to use up leftover cornbread. Even dry cornbread is useful for making croutons or stuffing mix. Alternatively, you can use it as a binder in place of regular breadcrumbs in a recipe for crab cakes or corn fritters. It's never really a bad thing to have some extra cornbread, and when a box of Jiffy is less than $1, you almost can't afford not to.

Read the original article on The Daily Meal.