What Is The Best Way To Add Corn To Your Cookies?

Does canned corn in your cookies sound like a culinary crime? Well put down those handcuffs, because the natural sweetness of corn is an underrated flavor for all kinds of desserts. I still remember driving across Montana a few summers back when I first came across sweet corn ice cream at a shop in Bozeman, and I have been chasing that high ever since.

There are dozens of ways corn can find its way into sweet confections: using whole kernels in corn pudding (or Indian pudding), corn meal in a cake batter, or even just snacking on the carnival-favorite caramel corn. The natural sugars in corn, like those extracted to make corn syrup, make the starchy crop a knock-out flavor in desserts, but you can't get that distinct taste from cornmeal alone. That's why cookbook author and host of the YouTube series Happy Baking, Erin Jeanne McDowell, swears by using freeze-dried corn powder to make one-of-a-kind corn cookies.

"Adding corn powder allows you to achieve a high level of corn flavor without adjusting the overall ratio of the recipe," McDowell told The Takeout. "For example, changing a shortbread cookie to be made with cornmeal would require more overall changes to the recipe to maintain the original texture than it would using a smaller amount of corn power." So corn powder is both easier to work with and more flavorful, sounds like a win-win. But why is this the case?

Although they have similar names, corn powder and cornmeal are quite different. "Corn powder is made from freeze dried whole corn kernels –  it's very fine and it packs a huge flavor punch, tasting very strongly of corn," said McDowell. "Cornmeal is made by grinding dried corn kernels into a meal — it's coarseness can vary, but even fine cornmeal will be more coarse than corn powder." Flavor and texture are important, sure, but that's not the end of it.

"Cornmeal also soaks up a lot of moisture, especially if it's more coarsely ground," McDowell continued. "Whereas corn powder will dissolve more easily into a recipe due to its fine texture." Although we often think of baked corn goods as being savory, like with honey butter corn muffins, we're excited to give the sweet side of corn a try.

Because McDowell specified freeze-dried corn powder for this kitchen tip, we were curious what other freeze-dried ingredients would be good in our next batch of cookies. "In general, freeze-dried products allow you to add a lot of flavor to a recipe, often without dramatically changing the structure or texture of the recipe. I use a lot of freeze-dried fruit powders, like strawberry and blueberry — I also love the natural color they impart in recipes!"