INGREDIENTS

FOR THE TAMALES

1 cup butter, at room temperature
½ cup cane syrup or honey
1 teaspoon white miso
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
2 cups Masienda brand masa harina
8 ounce-package corn husks
2 cups prunes, pitted and diced
1 cup pecans, chopped
2 to 3 cups water

FOR THE PRUNE GLAZE

1 cup prunes, pitted
1 cup hot water (or more for blending, if needed, to reach desired consistency)
1 cup cane syrup or honey
1 teaspoon white miso
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
½ cup pecans

METHOD

The night before: Leave a pound of butter out of the fridge to come to room temperature nice and slowly.

FOR THE PRUNE GLAZE

Soak a cup of pitted prunes in 1 cup of hot water. Let it sit for about 30 minutes, so prunes can soften. Puree the soaked prunes and water with the cane syrup (or honey), miso, and vanilla extract in a blender. Blend until smooth. If it’s too thick, you can add a bit more water. Transfer contents of the blender into a bowl and using a spatula mix in ½ cup of chopped and toasted pecans. If you’d like, you can add a bit of bourbon or dark rum.

FOR THE TAMALES

In a standing mixer, with the help of the whisk attachment, whip your butter on high for about 2 minutes, until a bit of air is incorporated, and the butter has increased its volume and become a pale almost white. Next, scrape all the butter off the whisk into the mixing bowl. Then, switch to a paddle attachment and add the miso, cane syrup, salt, and baking powder. Mix for about 30 seconds at low speed. Scrape the bowl and sides down again and then incorporate the masa harina in about 3 increments. Start trickling in water. Mix on the paddle attachment at medium speed until the batter looks homogenized. (It should resemble a very light cookie dough.)

TO ASSEMBLE

Soak the corn husks in hot water for 30 minutes, changing the water out every 10 minutes.

On a flat, clean table, lay out the husks (start with 20). You want to pick the nicest of the husks, look for no holes or tears, nice and pliable pieces. The husk resembles a triangular shape. Place them with the base of the “triangle” facing you and the tip facing away from you.

There are a lot of ways of building tamales—some people like to do a thin spread of batter and then filling. But since these tamales are more of a dessert, we are going to scoop the batter as if they were cookies. The amount of masa should resemble a golf ball. Place the scooped masa in the center of the husk and push in a couple pieces of cut prunes and a pinch of pecans.

Use the husk to encase the ball of batter in a rolling motion. The batter is supposed to flatten and take on a more rectangular shape.

Make strips of husk and use them to tie a double knot on the bottom of each tamale and fold the tip to tuck the tamale in.

TO COOK

Fill the bottom of a steamer pot with water ¾ of the way up. Let it come to a boil. Once it boils, throw in a penny for good luck (it’s my grandma’s way of knowing if the water gets too low because the penny will start tapping).

Arrange the tamales in the steamer basket, with the knots facing up, in a concentric circle.

Once the water boils, reduce it to a simmer and place the steamer basket with the tamales in it. Put a lid on and set a timer for 45 minutes. When your timer goes off, turn of the burner, and carefully open the pot away from you (there will lots of steam!). Using tongs, take a tamal out of the pot and place the lid back on. Open the tamal very carefully. You are looking for a tamal that is hot and steamy—so it will be little soft but it needs to set. If you’re not sure, take a little taste with the tip of a spoon—you’ll be able to tell if the masa is underdone. If it is, place the tamal back in the pot and steam for another 15 to 30 minutes. Repeat this process to make sure all of the tamales are cooked all the way. Once they are cooked, turn the pot off and let the tamales sit for 15 minutes before serving.

For serving, open your tamal, peel back the layers of the husk to expose the tamal itself, and add a big spoonful of your prune sauce. You can eat them like this, out of the husk, or if you’re feeling extra, make it à la mode with a small scoop of vanilla ice cream. Enjoy!