Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓
Indian Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare
Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).
Make and bake
In a large bowl, mix the milk, Indian meal, molasses, and butter until well combined.
Pour the mixture into a baking dish.
Bake for 4 hours on the bottom shelf of the oven.
Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.
Explore the science
The flavor team
The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Milk + molassestop 21% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together7,243 recipes
Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).
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Molasses + buttertop 30% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together8,123 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Milk
- Provides the liquid base that the cornmeal thickens and bakes into a soft custard.
- Indian meal
- Cornmeal that thickens the liquid and gives the pudding its grainy, sturdy body.
- Molasses
- Adds sweetness, deep color, and a caramel-like flavor as it bakes slowly.
The step that matters
Baking low and slow for 4 hours. Long, gentle heat lets the cornmeal swell and the milk slowly set and brown without curdling or drying out. Rushing with higher heat can leave the pudding watery in the middle and scorched at the edges.
“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.
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