Pennsylvania Dutch Corn Pudding

Growing up in Pennsylvania Dutch country, corn was always in regular rotation around our family table. The region’s rich agricultural history of growing and preserving the crop meant that there was always plenty of corn around, no matter the time of year. While indigenous people in what eventually became the Americas had long been growing corn and incorporating it into their cuisines, the Pennsylvania Dutch tradition of cooking with corn dates back to the 17th and 18th centuries, when German immigrants arrived in America. They sought to meld their culinary customs with the new ingredients available to them, resulting in what has now become Pennsylvania Dutch cuisine. 

Corn quickly became part of the Pennsylvania Dutch diet, and many cookbooks and magazines from the 19th century, including Phebe Earle Gibbons’ 1872 book Pennsylvania Dutch and Alice Morse Earle’s 1898 Home Life in Colonial Days, contain instructions for preparing corn, with the ingredient appearing in dishes like Johnny cakes, scrapple, dumplings, and corn pudding. 

As the late Edna Eby Heller wrote in her 1960 book The Dutch Cookbook, “There are more [Pennsylvania] Dutch ways of serving corn than any other vegetable, excepting potatoes.” If my childhood was any indication, she’s really not wrong. There was chicken corn soup on busy weeknights, garden-fresh corn as a summertime side, and during the holidays, a family favorite: baked corn pudding. With plenty of eggs, butter, milk, sugar, and sometimes cornstarch or flour, the dish is soft and creamy and balances the corn’s natural sweetness with just enough salt and pepper to make it a savory side.

Though corn pudding appears in many regional American cuisines—spicy green chile-inflected pudding in the Southwest, Southern spoonbread and casserole, and molasses-sweetened pudding in New England—they typically feature canned, creamed, or fresh corn. The version I grew up eating is traditionally prepared with dried corn, as drying corn and other homegrown produce was once such an important part of Pennsylvania farming culture that some homes were built with dry houses, small buildings with shelves and drawers specifically designed for drying fruits and vegetables. 

Nan Best, a family friend who grew up in the town of Brownstown in Pennsylvania’s Lancaster County, remembers her grandmother painstakingly removing the kernels from cobs of corn and spreading them onto trays that fit into a device her grandfather built to heat and dry corn. The process took several days, she recalls, and filled her home with a toasty aroma as the corn turned from vibrant yellow to deep golden brown. Best's memories are echoed by many other Pennsylvania Dutch cooks. “The operation was something of a culinary ritual,” writes Betty Groff in her Pennsylvania Dutch Cookbook. “As the corn dried on the stove in the corner of the farm kitchen, [family members] took turns staying awake all night to make sure it didn’t burn.”

 One company, Cope's, has sold dried sweet corn to Pennsylvanians for over 100 years, harvesting young corn and preserving it for a nutrient-dense dried corn; which the company describes as having a “golden color and toasted sweet corn flavor.” Cope’s is the brand Pennsylvanians turn to when they need dried corn, and some vintage Pennsylvania Dutch cookbooks even include an address so home cooks—in the pre-internet age—could order bags of the signature dried corn by mail.

A Fresh Twist on Pennsylvania Dutch Corn Pudding

To make corn pudding the traditional Pennsylvania Dutch way, home cooks soak finely ground dried corn in milk overnight to rehydrate it. While that method produces a delicious, flavorful dish, it’s a multi-day affair that simply isn’t realistic for most people. Although Pennsylvania grocery stores do carry dried corn occasionally, especially around fall and winter holidays, the kind needed to prepare this pudding the traditional way isn’t easy to source if you live elsewhere in the world. In Britain, where I now live, a search for dried corn led me to popping corn, freeze-dried corn, and plenty of chicken feed—but nothing suitable for making corn pudding. 

With that in mind, I call for fresh corn in my recipe below, making this a corn pudding that takes just one hour to prepare and is much easier to shop for. I’m not veering too far from tradition, as Pennsylvania Dutch puddings do incorporate fresh corn when seasonally available. (One of my vintage cookbooks includes options for puddings made with canned corn, dried corn, or fresh corn—three slightly different approaches to the same dish.) This version is similar to the one my family prepares: sweet and custardy, with a consistency that falls somewhere between pudding and quiche. 

With the exception of the food processor, this corn pudding is practically a one-bowl recipe that takes 10 minutes to whip up before you place it in the oven to bake. Though it’s slightly different from the dried corn pudding recipe that Nan shared with me, it’s no less delicious. When fresh corn comes into season, this is always one of the first things I make.