Corn is probably not the first thing you imagine being in a cookie. It might not even be at the end of the list. But I promise you these cornbread cookies are not to be skipped.

I have always thought of cornbread to be almost sort of a dessert, especially if you add cinnamon butter. It has a mild sweetness that one day I wondered if it could be made into some form of dessert. Apparently, I am not the only one who has wondered that. I found out that Crumbl has a cornbread cookie flavor, however I don’t have a Crumbl anywhere near me, and have only tasted their cookies once. I have no idea if they are any good, but if people were making copycat recipes I figured it wasn’t a bad idea.

That being said, I wanted to have cornbread cookies that are chewy rather than cakey. A cakey cookie might just feel like mini cornbreads? I wanted the flavor of cornbread but the experience to be cookie. I also wanted it to be frosted to move it further from bread, plus cinnamon honey butter is divine. To keep it from being too heavy though, I wanted the frosting to have a whipped light feeling. Don’t worry, there is zero actual corn in these cookies. I know some cornbread is made with it, but personally think that would be weird.

Baking Tips

The frosting on these is completely optional. We ate and enjoyed an entire batch without frosting and they are really great. The cinnamon buttercream makes them a much sweeter cookie, but still great. If you heavily frost them, the cornbread taste can be a little masked, so I’d recommend lightly frosting them if you do at all.

I tested these cookies multiple times with slight changes and modifications. First being dark vs light brown sugar. Honestly, it didn’t make a huge difference but I would use light brown sugar just to keep the flavor from going too overly into the caramel world. I am usually a team dark brown sugar all the time, so that’s saying something.

The type of cornmeal you use is really what you prefer. Personally, I liked the finely ground best but my husband actually preferred the medium ground. He said he liked the slight grit it had because it’s similar to cornbread he grew up eating which made the cornbread cookies taste more like actual cornbread. Additionally, when I was weighing my cornmeal the finer cornmeal was almost 10g heavier at the same weight. I still used 100g even though it results in slightly more than using medium ground. I found the medium ground easier to find as well.

If you like these cornbread cookies and want to try some more unique cookie flavors, I’d recommend:

Cornbread Cookies Key Ingredients

Cornmeal – Ground corn meal NOT cornstarch is what you want. What you would use if you were making cornbread from scratch. I tested this with medium ground, and it worked perfectly fine however it will have a slightly grittier texture even after baking, so if that bothers you I would opt for using finely ground.
Shortening – Shortening helps with the texture of these cookies and keeps them moist and more chewy.
Honey – Honey and cornbread just go together. You can use whatever honey you like best, however different kinds of honey will impart slightly different flavor profiles. For example wildflower honey will be more floral than clover honey, and orange blossom honey will have citrus notes.