The First Thanksgiving: Corn Pudding Recipe

I loved learning about the first Thanksgiving with my daughter and this Corn Pudding dessert recipe is a memorable dish to add to our food traditions for Thanksgiving that hearkened back to simpler times. I also thought it would be fun to bring One Little, Two Little, Three Little Pilgrims to life with a traditional pilgrim Thanksgiving recipe created in our very own kitchen hundreds of years later. While some of the recipes from the kids’ book didn’t look so appealing, I knew there would be an easy recipe Alina and I could try.

Really, what’s not to like about corn, or pudding? I was able to grab all my ingredients at Walmart, though there really isn’t much to this recipe. Though the combination of corn and pudding is foreign to my palate, I thought a test run of new Thanksgiving recipes a few weeks before Thanksgiving was worth a shot and if it turned out well that a new (old tradition) would be born!

If you read 1 Little, 2 Little, 3, Little Pilgrims, you’ll know that the first Thanksgiving was missing a lot of the items we take for granted today, like sugar. The fist colonists had no sugar and were reliant on the Wampanoag’s expertise in obtaining honey to sweeten their dishes. This corn pudding can be made with honey (and was sweetened with honey by the pilgrims), but for now I’ll be deviating from Pilgrim Thanksgiving tradition just a bit and utilizing cane sugar in my corn pudding.

Corn Pudding Recipe

• 2 cans of creamed corn

• 1 cups of whole milk

• 1/2 cup whole corn kernel, fresh or frozen

• 1/2 cup white sugar

• 1/4 golden brown sugar

• pinch of salt

• 2 tablespoons butter

• pinch nutmeg, extra for garnish

• 1/4 t spoon vanilla

Instructions
Place creamed corn and milk in food processor and pulse 3-4 times. Add whole kernels and pulse another few times, until incorporated but still chunky. Pour mixture into a saucepan and add a pinch of salt, 2 Tbls of butter and sugars. Bring to a boil on medium high whisking constantly until mixture thickens to a pudding consistency. Serve chilled and garnished with nutmeg.

Having been brought up in a very culinary traditional Cuban home, puddings are somewhat new to me. Other than rice pudding (which I’m making for Noche Buena!), I didn’t grow up on banana or bread and certainly not corn pudding. Daddy D, however, did. And he says this recipe was awesome. The kids loved it, too!

I liked it too. It was sweet, creamy and made a great dessert. And since it was also easy, I would definitely consider adding it to our Thanksgiving menu.

Disclosure: As a participant in the Walmart Moms Program, I’ve received product samples and compensation for my time and efforts in creating this post. All thoughts and opinions are my own.