Microwave Mexican Restaurant Sweet Corn Cakes

Microwave Mexican Restaurant Sweet Corn Cakes

Makes 6 cups, 12 servings - On table in 15-minutes

This is a Copy Cat Recipe that I developed for the microwave. I wanted a quick recipe to copy the sweet corn cakes (Mexican spoon bread) that are served at Mexican restaurants like El Torito's and Chi Chi's or sold as a mix at supermarkets. This is ready to eat in about 15 minutes. For a less sweet dish, reduce granulated sugar to 1/3 cup. For a firmer sweet corn cake, microwave an additional 3-minutes.

If you've never had these at a Mexican restaurant, they are similar to a firm, sweet, grits or polenta, with a corn tortilla flavor. The corn tortilla flavor comes from the masa harina flour. A good substitute for the masa harina flour is 1/4 cup of finely crushed Fritos corn chips.

I got the idea of making this recipe in a microwave from Cook's Illustrated. They have a microwave polenta recipe that cooks in 12 minutes.

I made this in an 1100-watt microwave.

Ingredients

1 cup yellow cornmeal, uncooked
1/4 cup masa harina flour (or 1/4 cup finely crushed Fritos corn chips, use in place of masa harina)
1/2 cup granulated sugar (or 1/3 cup for less sweet)
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt

2 cups milk
1 cup water
1 (15 ounce) can creamed corn
1 egg, beaten
4 tablespoons butter, melted



Directions

Stir all dry ingredients together in mixing bowl, mix well and set aside until needed. 
Mix all wet ingredients together in another bowl. Stir until well mixed.
Add dry ingredients to wet ingredients and stir out any dry lumps in batter.

Pour into a 3-quart covered, microwaveable casserole dish.

Cover and microwave on high for 6-minutes.

Stir well. Stir bottom and sides of dish well to remove any dry lumps.

Cover and microwave on high for another 6-minutes.

Stir a few times and serve warm using an ice cream scoop or disher.

This gets thicker as it cools and reaches room temperature. If you want a more
gritty sweet corn cake, use polenta corn meal instead of regular corn meal.

I made some tonight as a side dish along with 7 Layer Mexican Dip.