Tex-Mex Sweet Corn Spoon Cake
The sweet corn cake served alongside enchiladas in Tex-Mex restaurants is really a dessert in a side dish's clothes: masa or cornmeal, butter, and a heavy hand of sugar, baked soft enough to eat with a spoon. This keeps the spoonable texture and the honest corn flavor while trading the butter and sugar for whole plants. Blended dates sweeten it, half the corn is pulsed to release its own starchy milk for body, and flaxseed gel binds it in place of eggs. Coarse stone-ground cornmeal is what gives it the gentle grain of the original, so reach for polenta rather than fine meal. There is no baking powder, so expect a dense, custardy crumb rather than a fluffy one, which is exactly what a spoon cake should be.
Ingredients
- 2 cups Frozen corn, thawed
- 3/4 cup Polenta / coarse cornmeal
- 6 Medjool dates, pitted
- 1 1/2 cups Unsweetened soy milk
- 2 tbsp Ground flaxseed
- 1 tsp Ceylon cinnamon, ground
Method
- Heat the oven to 375°F (190°C). Stir the ground flaxseed into 5 tablespoons (75 ml) water and set it aside for 10 minutes to thicken into a gel. That gel is the binder standing in for eggs, holding the cake together as it bakes with none of the animal fat a corn cake usually carries.
- Blend the pitted dates with the soy milk until completely smooth. This date milk is the only sweetener, so blend it fully or you will bite into gritty flecks. Dates bring sweetness with their fiber still attached, unlike the sugar a Tex-Mex sweet corn cake is normally built on.
- Blend half the corn (1 cup) into the date milk in short pulses, leaving it a little coarse. Blending some of the corn releases its milky starch to thicken the batter, while the rest stays whole for pops of texture.
- In a bowl, stir together the cornmeal, cinnamon, the blended corn mixture, the flax gel, and the remaining whole corn until it is an even, loose batter. Pour it into an 8-inch (20 cm) baking dish.
- Bake for 40 to 45 minutes, until the top is set and lightly golden and a knife slid into the center comes out clean. It will look soft, because coarse cornmeal keeps drinking liquid as it cools.
- Let it cool at least 20 minutes before serving. Warm, it is spoonable like a pudding; fully cooled, it firms into a sliceable cake. Dust with a little more cinnamon to finish.
Nutrition
Estimated per serving: 180 calories, 4 g protein, 5 g fiber, 45 mg sodium. Computed from USDA FoodData Central reference values for the main ingredients. This is an approximation, not a laboratory measurement. How these are computed.
Cost per serving is estimated from US national-average retail prices for cheap staple forms, using BLS dried-bean prices and USDA produce prices. Prices vary by store and season, so treat it as a guide, not a receipt. How this is computed.
