To Bake Corn
Cut the corn from the cob and scrape off the cobs well. To each pint of corn thus prepared add a quarter of a pint of sweet cream (milk or water may be used); season to taste with salt and white pepper and butter; pour into a buttered pudding dish and bake half an hour, or until well cooked.
A plain baked corn pudding, and the whole thing rests on the scraping: the milky liquid pressed from the stripped cob is what thickens it. The original gives no oven temperature, so use 350F.
- Scrape the cobsAfter cutting the kernels off, run the back of a knife down each cob to press out the starchy liquid. That liquid is the only thickener here — skip it and you get corn sitting in cream rather than a set pudding.
- QuantitiesA pint of cut corn is roughly 3 to 4 medium ears, depending on size. A quarter of a pint of cream is half a cup. That ratio makes a fairly dry, corn-forward dish; a full cup of cream gives something closer to a modern custard.
- Oven heatNo temperature is given, as is common in books of this kind. 350F is a reasonable modern working temperature. Half an hour in an uncovered buttered dish will brown the top; check that the centre is set and no longer soupy.
- Butter and seasoningThe recipe leaves butter to taste; 2 to 3 tablespoons for a pint of corn, cut in small pieces over the top or stirred through, suits the dish. White pepper is conventionally used in pale dishes to avoid dark specks; black pepper will work but is sharper and will speck the surface.
- Frozen cornIt works, but it has already been cut from the cob and cannot be scraped. Add a tablespoon of flour or a beaten egg to the cream to compensate, and thaw and drain first so the dish does not weep.
- YieldA pint of corn fills a small 1-quart dish and serves four as a side. It doubles without trouble; a doubled batch in a larger dish needs about 45 minutes.
Scraped-corn puddings belong to a family of American dishes that runs from early American cookery through to the corn puddings and casseroles still made in the South and Midwest, and they depend on green corn — corn picked young and milky rather than dried. Before reliable canning and long before freezing, this was largely a late-summer dish, which is why nineteenth-century books tend to place it among the seasonal vegetables and to assume the cook is working through a heap of cobs with a knife. Later versions often drop the scraping and reach for flour, cornstarch or eggs instead. Cream is offered here as the first choice with milk or water as permitted substitutes.