Husked corn buttered, seasoned and roasted on a sheet pan. Eight ears, and the oven does the work.

Butter in two stages

Half the eight tablespoons spread before baking, the rest over the warm corn afterwards.

The first half is doing the cooking work. It coats the kernels, conducts heat and helps them brown in spots, and much of it renders off into the pan.

The second half never sees the oven, so it tastes like butter rather than like cooked butter. Spread onto hot corn it melts and coats without breaking down.

Skipping the second addition gives you corn that tastes roasted but not buttery, which misses the point.

Turn it occasionally

During the thirty to forty five minutes.

Corn is round and it sits on a flat pan, so only a narrow strip touches the metal. That strip browns fast and the rest of the ear cooks in ambient heat.

Turning brings a new face down every so often, which is what gives you browning around the whole cob rather than a single dark stripe.

Every ten minutes or so is enough.

The stated time is a range for a reason

The header says thirty minutes and the method says thirty to forty five.

Use the range. Corn varies enormously depending on how fresh it is and how thick the ears are, and the real indicator is the kernels being tender with some browning.

Fresh summer corn at the shorter end; older or larger ears need longer.

Foil is for cleanup, not steaming

Lined for easy cleanup, which the recipe specifies.

This matters because most oven corn recipes wrap each ear in foil, which steams it. Here the corn is bare on a lined sheet, exposed to dry heat, which is what produces the browning.

Do not wrap them. Wrapped corn is perfectly good and it is a different dish.

Husks and silk off first

All of it.

Silk left on burns and tastes bitter, and it is easier to remove from a raw cob than a hot one. A dry paper towel rubbed down the cob catches the last strands better than fingers do.

Room temperature butter

Eight tablespoons.

Cold butter will not spread onto a cob without tearing. Melted butter runs straight off into the pan.

Softened, it stays where you put it long enough to get into the oven.

Making it spicy

Four tablespoons of softened butter mixed with cayenne, smeared on before baking or brushed on at the end.

Before baking gives a smokier, mellower heat as the cayenne toasts. At the end it is sharper and more direct.

Both work. Doing half the ears each way is the sensible approach if you are feeding a mixed crowd.

Around 306mg of sodium per ear

Which comes almost entirely from the teaspoon of kosher salt across eight ears plus whatever you add at the end.

That is moderate rather than high, and it is easily adjusted since most of the salt goes on at the table anyway.

Make ahead and storage

Buttered and seasoned up to a day in advance, covered tightly in the fridge.

That is genuinely useful for a barbecue, since it turns the day-of work into putting a tray in the oven.

Leftovers wrapped in foil keep three days. Reheat in a 350F oven wrapped, or microwave under a damp paper towel.

Serving

Hot, with more butter, salt and pepper at the table. Around 178 calories per ear. Freezing Cooked corn freezes for three months, wrapped individually in plastic then bagged. The texture softens noticeably on thawing, so it is a fallback rather than a plan.

Why oven rather than boiling

Boiling cooks corn in about five minutes and produces a clean, sweet, uniform result. Roasting takes considerably longer and gives you browning, which boiling cannot.

The trade is time for flavour. For eight ears the oven is also less work than a pot large enough to hold them.