Ina Garten Updated Jennifer Garner’s Grandmother’s Recipe

One foodie friendship we can’t get enough of is between Jennifer Garner and Ina Garten. The hosts of #PretendCookingShow and Barefoot Contessa, with their great recipes and goofy chemistry, always leave us feeling inspired to try something new. And since the pair just linked up again for a new episode of Ina’s Be My Guest on Food Network, now we have yet another Garner- and Garten-approved recipe that we just have to try.

This time around, the pair collaborated on a fluffy, buttery pan of Brown Butter Skillet Cornbread, inspired by Garner’s grandmother’s recipe. Jennifer actually shared the original recipe on Instagram back in 2020, when she and her mom whipped up a batch over a video call. In this episode of Be My Guest, Garten says that Jennifer requested a little cornbread Q-and-A session, so she can figure out how to improve her grandmother’s recipe. 

Ina’s version is plenty different from Grandma Pat’s, from process to ingredients. To get the nutty flavor of brown butter into this quick bread, Ina starts with browning two sticks of butter in her cast-iron pan, letting the milk solids in the butter get nice and caramelized, but not burnt. (Our test kitchen put together this helpful guide to browning butter for rookies—it’s a must-read.) Once the butter has that pretty tanned color, she adds the butter to a bowl with whole milk and two extra-large eggs, whisking everything together until the mixture is well combined. 

With that finished, Ina adds in her dry ingredients: all-purpose flour, sugar, fine yellow cornmeal, baking powder and kosher salt. Then comes the first trick up Ina’s sleeve: letting the batter rest. We already knew that some baked goods need time to sit before they can be baked, like cookie dough or fresh bread, but cornbread can benefit too, according to Ina. She lets her batter rest for 15 minutes so that the cornmeal can absorb some of the liquid and better incorporate into the bread batter. 

“It’s really incredible, what a difference it makes,” Ina says of the resting time. 

When the batter’s ready, Ina gives it one last stir and pours it right back into the pan she used to brown the butter. What’s left of the butter in the pan will help to grease it, so there’s no need to spray the pan with oil or sprinkle in some flour. Just before popping it into the oven, Ina sprinkles the bread with flaky sea salt for an extra touch of flavor, but you can leave it off, if you like. After baking for about 30 minutes at 350°, the cornbread is puffy, fluffy and ready to serve. When Ina serves Jennifer the first slice out of the pan, she gets a rave review.

“It tastes like the best thing I’ve had in my whole life,” Garner gushes.

Ina also offers some pointers to help with Garner’s grandmother’s recipe. Though Jennifer loves her family recipe, she also thinks it’s a little dense and not very fluffy. After a little recipe analysis, Ina observes that the Garner cornbread might be using the wrong ratio of flour to cornmeal. Where Ina uses 3 cups of flour to 1 cup of cornmeal, Grandma Pat recommends 3/4 cup of cornmeal to 1/4 cup all-purpose flour. But cornmeal is much heavier than flour, Ina observes, so a fluffy cornbread will need more flour than cornmeal. Adding more of a leavening agent, like baking powder, should help with that too, Ina tells Garner.

We’re fans of a hot pan of fluffy cornbread ourselves, especially recipes like our Creole Skillet Cornbread. If you pair your quick bread with a steamy cup of hearty chili or a plate of Grilled Chicken Taco Salad, you’re sure to have a delicious meal *and* a yummy snack on your hands—so get out the butter and start browning.