Eric King (@easygayoven on all platforms), who developed his corn cream trifles using both kernels and cobs, using corn is as much about the seasonality as it is about its flavor. His take on a knickerbocker glory—a British dessert made from whipped cream, ice cream, wafer cookies, and fruit—uses peaches and nectarines bathed in a subtly sweet corn pastry cream. “It’s kind of grassy and kind of earthy,” he says. “It definitely cuts through sweetness really well.”

King’s corn pastry cream appeared in Erika Kwee’s sweet corn layer cake a couple weeks after its debut. Other recipes, like Justine Doiron’s (@justine_snacks) butter oat corn cookies, harness the kernels’ texture, which she says add a “chewiness and a texture to cookies.”

Chef Fátima Juárez puts the finishing touches on a pan de elote, a corn-powered dessert at her LA restaurant, Komal.

At Los Angeles’ Komal, one of Bon Appétit’s Best New Restaurants of 2025, corn arrives in another form: jelly. It’s a pre-hispanic Oaxacan dessert called nicuatole made from just corn, cinnamon, and water—the naturally present starch in the corn helps everything set into jiggling, jellied perfection. Chef Fátima Juárez tops the nicuatole with piped strawberry whipped cream and hibiscus, but a major flavor component, she says, is the corn itself. She uses a specific type of heirloom Mexican corn called chalqueña cremoso which gives the jelly a delicately milky flavor.

But, as she explains, corn is incredibly versatile, and Juárez’s nicuatole is just one of her corn-based dessert ideas. She’s dreaming up chocolate tortillas, corn cookies and conchas—it’s all about harnessing the unique flavors and aromas in heirloom corn. Some varieties bloom into a beautiful nutty flavor, while others have a sharp fruitiness like red berries.

Once you start paying attention to the distinct flavors in heirloom corn, “you’ll see the difference in the flavor notes,” Juárez says. “It’s just like drinking tea or wine.”

Juárez’s Komal is one of a growing number of restaurants across the country dedicating their menus to heirloom corn varieties sourced from Mexico. Restaurants like For all Things Good in Brooklyn, and Oro by Nixta in Minneapolis, one of Bon Appétit’s Best New Restaurants of 2024, are thinking of heirloom corn in terms of its sustainability as much as its flavor.

“It’s important to preserve the biodiversity of the corn and to support the farmers in Mexico,” says Juárez. But in the right hands, heirloom corn can become nearly anything. “You can serve it hot or cold, in bread, in a jelly, or in a drink. You name it.”