Sweet Corn Tamales
There are many different types of tamales. Most people are used to seeing either pork or chicken tamales served with either a green or red sauce. These sweet corn tamales are considered a dessert tamale. They are still served with sour cream and some hot sauce. There are many extra ingredients that you can add to the dough if you’re looking for more than just sweet corn. Egg yolks, cinnamon, cream, and cheese would be great additions to the dough.Assembling the tamales is pretty simple. Place dough in the center of the husk. Fold over right, bottom, left, then roll up. Easy enough. While not necessary, I like to roll them up again in another husk. When steaming the tamales, make sure to line the bottom of the steamer basket with extra husks and that no water is touching the tamales. You only need 1” of water in the bottom of your pot. These will take 75 minutes to steam. When finished, let sit for 15-20 minutes before you serve them. They will need a little time to settle and firm up. Serve the tamales with sour cream and a hot sauce of your liking.These can be made with fresh sweet corn and husks. It takes about 5 ears of corn to yield 6 cups of kernels. Make sure to thoroughly clean the fresh husks of any silt. You will want to layer up the corn husks will fresh ones. Other than that, they assemble and cook the same way.
Equipment
- food processor
- steamer
Ingredients
- 6 cups sweet corn
- 1 1/2 cups masa flour
- 1 1/2 cups butter
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp salt
Instructions
- Bring a pot of water to a boil. Pour over the corn husks, making sure that they are completely submerged. Weigh them down with the pot you boiled the water in. Let soak for 40 minutes. While the husks are soaking, you can start to prepare the dough.
- In a food processor, lightly pulse the corn until it is coarsly chopped, but not puréed.
- Mix the corn together with the masa flour.
- In a separate bowl, mix together the butter, sugar, and salt.
- Add the butter mixture to the corn mixture. Mix thoroughly. Add in the baking powder and mix.
- When the husks are ready to use, pick out the biggest ones. Depending on how big you want your tamales, use either 1/3 cup of the dough for smaller tamales or 1/2 cup of dough for larger tamales. I made larger ones, obviously. Place the dough in the center of the husk like so, forming into a cylindrical shape. Fold over the right side first; then the bottom upwards; then the left side over; then roll. At this point they are ready. I like to personally roll them up again in another husk.
- If making large tamales like I did, the dough recipe will yield a dozen. If making smaller ones, you will yield 16-20 tamales.
- Line the bottom of a steamer pot basket with some of the smaller corn husks that you didn’t roll up. Place the tamales in the steamer standing upright. If the pot isn’t ham packed, fill the gaps with the remaining husks. Cover the top of the tamales with more husks.
- Add no more than an inch of water to the bottom of the steamer pot. Bring to a boil, then turn the heat down to medium. Place the steamer pot basket in the pot, covered with a lid. Steam for 75 minutes.
- Let sit for 15-20 minutes before serving. They will firm up quite a bit.
- I like to serve these with a little sour cream and a couple drizzles of hot sauce.
