Cheesecake Factory Corn Cakes are tender, buttery corn cakes topped with tomatillo salsa, pico de gallo, southwestern sauce, avocados, cilantro and sour cream!
Cheesecake Factory Corn Cakes are a huge hit with our family every time we go to the Cheesecake Factory, especially when we are out in groups and everyone needs a safe “chain” option as I believe it is one of the better ones out there. It also has the largest menu I have ever seen so you can be sure everyone will be happy.
Keeping that in mind, I always order the EXACT same thing every time I go because if there is anything you will learn about me, it is that once I find a favorite you can be sure I order it every time. Are you wondering how I try new flavors out or find new favorites then? Easy. My dear, loving husband is the opposite of me when it comes to dining out. He wants new things each time, which means I get to enjoy my favorite dish AND try out something new every time we go. I call that a total win in my book! So what do I order every time I go? Easy. First I eat far too much of the squaw bread for my trainer’s liking, then I order these delicious Cheesecake Factory Corn Cakes! Follow it up with Spicy Cashew Chicken (and I usually ask for extra sauce on the side because I am a saucy sort of gal 😉 ) and I will be honest I never finish any of my plates and I almost never order dessert.
The thing about the Cheesecake Factory is the portions are basically caveman size. Just these Cheesecake Factory Corn Cakes would be more than a meal for me, so I always shoot for about ⅓ of my plate. Then I can make it to the next course. Since I love these dishes so much, I usually end up about eating about half of each and I am too full for dessert. The one dessert I do remember enjoying from their is the strawberry shortcake though! Wait, no cheesecake you say in disbelief? Yes, no cheesecake.
Look I have just consumed probably 4000 calories… where on earth is that cheesecake supposed to go? There was an episode of The Chew recently where Michael and Daphne were making competing recipes and his dish was the more indulgent version of hers and he was saying to rub butter on the thighs and Daphne joked that he may as well have been adding the fat to his thighs. That it what I think of when it comes to ordering a cheesecake there, haha. I may just add it straight to my problem areas! That being said, sometimes my husband will order a slice, and later that night at home I may sneak a bite (or 2)!
My biggest tip when it comes to these Cheesecake Factory Corn Cakes is PUT YOUR KNIFE AWAY! Aside from slicing the avocado and chopping some cilantro let your food processor do all the work. Look at the pictures, my salsas are all dump and process. It is as quick as assemble ingredients, empty bowl. Rinse bowl (don’t even bother soaping it up here we aren’t including oils and all of this is getting eaten together anyway!) and move on to the next step. I had all of it done, including assembling/washing the ingredients in 20 minutes. I listed it as 40 if you take your time and chop things, but realistically I started cooking this at about 12:00 pm right when The Chew started and it was 12:42 as I sat down to enjoy my Cheesecake Factory Corn Cakes as Michael and Clinton yelled at each other in Clinton’s Craft Corner (jazz hands!). It doesn’t have to take 1+ hour if you use your kitchen tools to do the work for you. 🙂
Make the salsa verde by putting the tomatillos, mild green chilies, green onion, 2 tablespoons fresh cilantro, 1 ¼ teaspoons granulated sugar, ¼ teaspoon ground cumin, ¼ teaspoon salt and 1 pinch ground black pepper in a food processor for 5-10 seconds. Put in the refrigerator to chill. 
To make the tomato salsa put the tomatoes, diced onion, 1 tablespoon fresh cilantro, ¼ teaspoon lime juice, ½ small jalapeno, 1 dash salt and 1 dash ground black pepper in a food processor for 5-10 seconds. Put in the refrigerator to chill. 
To make the southwestern sauce, put ½ cup mayonnaise, 1 teaspoon white vinegar, 1 teaspoon water, ¾ teaspoon granulated sugar, ½ teaspoon chili powder, ¼ teaspoon paprika, 1 pinch cayenne pepper, 1 pinch onion powder, 1 dash salt and 1 dash garlic powder in a small bowl and mix. To Make the Tamale Cakes, put 1 cup of the frozen corn with the butter, sugar, and salt in a food processor. 
Blend well. 
Move the ingredients to a bowl. Add the corn flour, remaining corn and all purpose flour and blend well. 
Measure ¼ cup portions of the mixture and form it into patties with your hands. Add 2 tablespoons of canola oil to a pan and heat onto medium high. Cook the patties for 3-5 minutes or until browned, flip and continue to cook until browned. 
To assemble, Place all the Cheesecake Factory Corn Cakes on a warmed serving platter. Add a spoonful of the salsa verde and pico de gallo salsa. Garnish with diced avocado, the southwestern sauce, cilantro and a dollop of sour cream. 
Enjoy your Cheesecake Factory Corn Cakes! You’ve earned it! 
Ingredients
Salsa Verde:
- 2 tomatillos , diced
- 4 ounces mild green chilies , drained and diced
- 1 green onion , minced
- 2 tablespoons fresh cilantro , minced
- 1 1/4 teaspoons granulated sugar
- 1/4 teaspoon ground cumin
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1 pinch ground black pepper
Tomato Salsa:
- 2 medium tomatoes
- 1 tablespoon minced onion
- 1 tablespoon fresh cilantro , minced
- 1/4 teaspoon lime juice
- 1/2 small jalapeno , seeded and minced
- 1 dash salt
- 1 dash ground black pepper
Southwestern Sauce:
- 1/2 cup mayonnaise
- 1 teaspoon white vinegar
- 1 teaspoon water
- 3/4 teaspoon granulated sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon chili powder
- 1/4 teaspoon paprika
- 1 pinch cayenne pepper
- 1 pinch onion powder
- 1 dash salt
- 1 dash garlic powder
Tamale Corn Cakes:
- 1 1/2 cups sweet corn
- 1/2 cup butter , softened
- 3 tablespoons sugar
- 1 pinch salt
- 1/2 cup corn masa harina flour (corn flour)
- 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
Toppings:
- 1/4 cup sour cream
- 1/2 avocado , diced
- 2 tablespoons fresh cilantro , chopped
Instructions
- Make the salsa verde by putting the tomatillos, mild green chilies, green onion, 2 tablespoons fresh cilantro, 1 ¼ teaspoons granulated sugar, ¼ teaspoon ground cumin, ¼ teaspoon salt and 1 pinch ground black pepper in a food processor for 5-10 seconds. Put in the refrigerator to chill.
- To make the tomato salsa put the tomatoes, diced onion, 1 tablespoon fresh cilantro, ¼ teaspoon lime juice, ½ small jalapeno, 1 dash salt and 1 dash ground black pepper in a food processor for 5-10 seconds. Put in the refrigerator to chill.
- To make the southwestern sauce, put ½ cup mayonnaise, 1 teaspoon white vinegar, 1 teaspoon water, ¾ teaspoon granulated sugar, ½ teaspoon chili powder, ¼ teaspoon paprika, 1 pinch cayenne pepper, 1 pinch onion powder, 1 dash salt and 1 dash garlic powder in a small bowl and mix.
- To Make the Tamale Cakes, put 1 cup of the frozen corn with the butter, sugar, and salt in a food processor. Blend well. Move the ingredients to a bowl. Add the corn flour, remaining corn and all purpose flour and blend well.
- Measure ¼ cup portions of the mixture and form it into patties with your hands. Add 2 tablespoons of canola oil to a pan and heat onto medium high. Cook the patties for 3-5 minutes or until browned, flip and continue to cook until browned.
- To assemble, Place all the cakes on a warmed serving platter. Add a spoonful of the salsa verde and pico de gallo salsa. Garnish with diced avocado, the southwestern sauce, cilantro and a dollop of sour cream.
- Enjoy! You've earned it!
Notes
Nutrition
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I now see my mistake. May I suggest this [edit] to point #4 suggested edits in brackets.
To Make the Tamale Cakes, put 1 cup [(reserving 1/2c)]of the [thawed] frozen corn with the butter, sugar, and salt in a food processor. Blend well. Move the ingredients to a bowl. Add the corn flour, remaining corn and all purpose flour and blend well.
This might be an error, or I might be missing something. The recipe states one and a half cups of corn for the cakes but the instructions refer to one cup of corn. Can you clarify, or correct?
Hi! “1 cup of the frozen corn with the butter, sugar, and salt in a food processor. Blend well. Move the ingredients to a bowl. Add the corn flour, remaining corn and all purpose flour and blend well.” Just to clarify, “the remaining corn” is the remaining half cup. Sorry for any confusion!
Just about to make this recipe.
I would find two more bits of information very helpful.
-Number of cakes per serving and
-Weight of tomatillos.
While it says six servings (and your slider to change serving number is a nice feature) it doesn’t tell us how many cakes are in a serving. I would like to serve my guests two cakes each. Until I make the recipe I won’t know what the volume of the total recipe is. This makes it hard for me to shop for an appropriate amount of ingredients.
I’m afraid the tomatillos I purchased might be too small. So if tomatillos come in different sizes, it would be nice to know how many grams should go in each recipe.
Thank you for your efforts.
LOVE these
When I put the cold corn into the softened butter it just makes the butter hard again. I am doing something wrong? Also, do you think these could be frozen before frying?
I am just seeing this tonight. I am sure the recipe has long been cooked/or not but I still want to try to help.
Yes you could freeze before frying, and if the corn is that cold I would microwave on half power until it is just at room temperature, that for sure could mess with the recipe.
Delicious! Tastes just like the restaurants! I haven’t been there in years but always loved these cakes. I put the corn mixture in the refrigerator since we weren’t ready to eat them and they were fine. It just was hard to use a stick of butter!! I used fresh corn that I cut off the cob and measured 1 1/2 cups. The sauces were great. Thanks for posting this.
The recipe is written oddly. Why are we told to do all this chopping/dicing/mincing items before sticking them into a food processor that is going to puree them into a sauce? You even show sticking them whole in the pictures and you say in the big written preamble that we don’t need to use our knife, but the actual recipe list tells to do all this prep. Most people are going to follow the short recipe so why does it have unused prep steps? Also, in the pictures of the finished item, the tomatoes are still fairly chunky so we wouldn’t want to puree the tomato salsa into liquid, but we are told to puree it in the food processor for the same amount of time as the green sauce which would turn it into juice instead of chunks. I’m kinda winging the recipe steps based on the look of the finished item.
Okay I was way confused with how you make the cakes. You say to blend together the tamale cakes then you say move to a bowl. Then you say put in the remaining corn and flour blah blah and blend well. Then you don’t say what your supposed to do with these two separate bowls of ingredients. I keep thinking in my mind I have this in the food processor and this in a bowl then it says to fry the mixture but I have this extra stuff that it doesn’t say what I’m supposed to do with. Now for thinking for five minutes I’m assuming you mix up the first stuff in the processor then move to a bowl then blend the second batch of corn and then mix all that together THEN fry them? It doesn’t say that to do and I want to make these so bad!
You’ll move the ingredients from the food processor to a bowl and then add the other ingredients. Out of that bowl, you’ll measure 1/4 cup portions for the crab cakes. I hope this clears things up for you. Enjoy!!
When I read those steps, I think you blend (in the food processor) the first part. Then put the stuff into a bowl and add the rest of the stuff to the bowl so you are ‘blending’ the second part in with a spoon rather than blending with the processor.
I made it, it’s great, tastes just like in the restaurant. Only problem was to make the patties, to keep the dough together… Any suggestions.
They are very delicate to work with in the beginning but you can try and press a little firmer to make the patties. Once you place them in the pan, try to get a good sear before turning them over gently. I’m so glad you enjoyed them though! Definitely worth the effort!!
I love these from the Cheesecake Factory! I am def going to try these! What is a serving size in your recipe 1 cake? I just want to know how many cakes I would get for the one recipe for my family … since none of us would eat just one ?
This recipe yields 6 servings. 🙂 In the recipe card, I have a new feature that allows you to adjust the servings using a slider so if you think you’ll need more, just slide to the right! Enjoy!
Question – do you use the corn frozen or do you thaw it first?
You’ll want to thaw it first. Sorry for the confusion!
Maybe that’s what went wrong. It does not say to thaw the corn in the recipe. The butter melts and combines with the oil and they never would cook all the way through.
I love Cheesecake Factory Corn Cakes so I was so excited to try this. The cake didn’t form very well, very dry consistency. No egg? Help!
I’m not sure what would’ve gone wrong. Feel free to email me at contact @ dinnerthendessert.com and we can try and troubleshoot.
OMG.
I order the very same two items at Cheese Cake Factory. Always say I WILL TRY SOMETHING different but never do. Thanks for the recipes, will make them.
It’s so hard to stray from what you know is soooo good!
Hello,
I’ve eaten these time and again at the cheesecake factory and I’d love to make these for the upcoming holiday. We will be traveling to my sister in law about 3 hours away. Do you think these would travel well? If yes, how would you suggest I pack them? Cooked, chilled and rewarm .in the oven when we get there?
I’d love to surprise the family with these being one of the appetizers we are supposed to bring.
Thanks!
No, unfortunately these won’t travel well at all. They’ll get mushy 🙁
I just had these corn cakes at Cheesecake Factory and thought they were wonderful so I went looking for the recipe. I came across yours and I can’t wait to try making them. You have some great tricks and tips for making them fast and easy to cook. I’m also happy that you can add more of you favorite “stuff” if you make your own rather than ordering in a restaurant (pile on the avocados and fresh tomatoes for me!). It’s also nice that the recipe can be adjusted for a healthier version byleaving out the mayo, using less butter, and maybe even baking the corn cakes, it is swim suit season after all! So glad I found your recipe!
I hope you enjoy them! Please come back and let me know how they turned out!
Thanks so much for this recipe! We tried it last night and loved it; the sauces are amazing! One question- should I use 1/2 cup of butter or 1/2 stick of butter? The pictures are so helpful, and it looks like 1/2 stick rather than 1/2 cup to me. Just want to get it right, as we will be making them again!
That’s actually a whole stick which is the equivalent of a 1/2 cup. 🙂
Hi, your salsa would taste much better if you boil the tomatillos beforehand!
Corn cakes are the only thing I eat at Cheesecake Factory other than the cheesecakes. Thank you for sharing the recipe. I am glad I can now make them at home.
I definitely want to give this recipe a try!! They sound so perfect for fall!
Wow! I can’t believe how easy this is – and SO many flavors. I’ve never had the Cheesecake Factory version, but I bet this is SO YUMMY. Thanks for sharing!!
Sabrina YUM! These look so delicious! I want to reach in and grab one!
Aww thanks Trish! PS, my husband was reading a blog post of yours I had open and he said he thinks you and I have a similar writing style 😉
Cheesecake Factory Ain’t got nothing on these beauties ! yummyliciousness !
Aww how sweet! Thanks!
These look scrumptious! never had them at the cheesecake factory but I have to make them now!
These corn cakes look absolutely amazing! I’m sure they’re better than Cheesecake Factory’s!
my new must do, can’t wait!
Yum! They look so very tasty! Now I’m hungry again!
I’ve never been to Cheesecake Factory but these looks delicious. Lovely pictures too!
I love corn cakes and these look absolutely delicious!!
oh these are delicious, so good that you went ahead and recreated this recipe, many thanks and I will sure make it 🙂
Awesome! I hope you love it!
Hooray for copycat recipes! This looks delicious!
Thanks Tracy!