This dessert at Tzuco in Chicago is a collaboration of pastry chefs Jesús Escalera, Juan Chávez, and Paola Fernández as well as chef Carlos Gaytán.
They start my making a completely smooth purée of canned corn, including liquid from the can, plus some water and xanthan gum. That’s mixed with an ice cream base and spun into ice cream.
Then they make white chocolate yellow by adding oil-soluble food coloring and spread that into a corncob-shaped mold. That’s frozen and then filled halfway with the corn ice cream. It’s spread with a sauce of cajeta caramel mixed with espresso, then filled the rest of the way with the ice cream and returned to the freezer.
Separately they make a classic chocolate mousse and then spread it on a baking sheet, bake it, cool it and break it into crumbles.
They also make a crumble of instant coffee, almond powder, sugar, flour, butter, cocoa, and chocolate.
To plate the dish they put the baked chocolate mousse on the bottom along with caramel corn and the coffee crumble. Then the add a spiral of the espresso caramel, add some phyllo sheets for height and texture, top that with the frozen “corn cob” and finish it with cubes of honey gelatin.
It’s $18.