El Torito's Sweet Corn Cake

At first glance you might be wondering what the hell this is...

Well, it is El Torito's Sweet Corn Cake.

Still confused? If you have ever been to El Torito, it is that little ice cream scoop of corn goodness that they give with just about every hot dish on the menu. I am fanatic over it and I figured that I should learn how to make it.

What makes this even better is that this is the actual recipe for their sweet corn cake. I got it from a chef at a near-by El Torito. While I know you are hoping for a really cool story about how I obtained the recipe James Bond style, I just simply went in and asked for it.

Process

Start by preheating your oven to 350°F. Put your butter in your mixer and whip. A lot.. This is really where the stand-up mixer will greatly help as whipping butter by hand is just plain irritating. Continue to whip until the butter is very fluffy. Yes, that kind of fluffy.  Add in the masa harina (corn flour) and water gradually until blended.

Prepare your corn. Either use fresh cobs or frozen stuff, either one will work. I used fresh corn (mainly because I had these in my fridge and needed to use them). Place them into a food processor and pulse a few times until it is coarsely chopped (again I used my handy-dandy blender). Stir into the masa harina.

Take the cornmeal, sugar, whipping cream, baking powder, and salt and combine in a large mixing bowl. This will make a corn paste that you will want to mix in with the masa harina mixture relatively quickly. The cake mix has an interesting texture as it really isn't a batter or a dough.

Pour the corn cake mix into a greased 8-inch dish and cover with aluminum foil. Take this pan and place it into a larger dish. I used my small and large Pyrex dishes for this as they fit easily into each other. Fill the larger dish with hot water and place into the oven. Let it bake for about fifty minutes. Check on the water in the large pan every so often and make sure it stays full. Be careful though as this water gets to be boiling and can hurt.

After it is done, take it out of the larger dish and let sit for fifteen minutes before you serve.

El Torito's Sweet Corn Cake

Ingredients

2/3 cups butter, unsalted
1/3 cup masa harina (corn flour)
4 T water
10 ounces frozen corn kernels or 2 fresh cobs worth of kernels
3 T cornmeal
1/3 cup sugar
2 T whipping cream
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp Kosher salt

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Whip butter in mixer until fluffy. Gradually add in masa harina and water until well-combined. Coarsely chop corn in food processor and add to the mix.
2. Combine cornmeal, sugar, whipping cream, baking powder, and salt together in a separate bowl. Mix in with masa harina mix.
3. Place into a greased 8-inch pan and cover with aluminum foil. Take this dish and place it into a larger dish and fill with hot water. Bake for 50 minutes, ensuring the water bath maintains a good level of water. If needed, add hot water. 
4. Remove from water bath and let sit for 15 minutes being serving.