I had a bag of frozen corn in the freezer, a can of coconut milk in the pantry, and a box of rice flour. I strived to make some maja blanca maiz this weekend but ended up with a cold dessert with the consistency of pudding. The maja blanca of my childhood possessed the firmness of gelatin or flan rather than the softness of champurado, or a standard rice pudding.

Maja blanca is typically referred to as a coconut pudding or rice-coconut pudding. But in my experience, it typically sets or hardens after cooking. My experimental dessert sat in the fridge overnight and remained in a semi-liquid state. Luckily I didn’t go so far as to produce latik, or fried coconut curd, to accompany it. So, after much review of the original recipe, I resolve to retry the dessert again with cornstarch.