Tupelo Cornbread Dressing

📝 Notes: Also known as: Cracker Tupelo Dressing · Miz Kathi's Sweetgum Dressing The concept: Classic: house Cornbread Dressing (already on the pantry list). Vector: Substitution (a tupelo honey brush before the final bake replaces a plain butter finish). This is a light-touch, single-step upgrade to an item already in heavy holiday rotation, worth doing for the Magnolia Room's event menus specifically. Hero ingredient: Tupelo honey, brushed thin over the top in the last 10 minutes of baking so it sets into a light glaze rather than soaking in. Components: House Cornbread — use existing house recipe as-is, corn omitted per the dressing base standard. Plating: Scoop and serve alongside turkey or as a standalone holiday plate side. Pro upgrade: toast the poultry seasoning briefly in the sauté butter before adding vegetables to bloom the spices. Prep efficiency: assembles a day ahead through the pre-bake stage; bake fresh the day of service for best texture. Cross-utilization: same cornbread base feeds this and stands alone as a bread — batch cornbread once, split the use. Failure modes: adding all the broth at once before checking moisture leads to a soggy dressing that never sets — always add gradually and check texture by hand. Scaling: This is already scaled to event volume (5x); for a full Magnolia Room 100-top: double again and bake in a third-pan format across multiple ovens — a single dish this size won't bake evenly.