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Dessert

Indian Corn Meal Pudding

A baked pudding made from cornmeal, milk, butter, sugar, eggs, raisins, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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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 Corn Meal Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the base

  1. Bring 2 pints of hot water to a boil in a pot.

  2. Stir in 1 teacup of corn meal and 1 teaspoon of salt.

  3. Cook thoroughly.

  4. Add 1 quart of rich sweet milk, 1 tablespoon of butter, and ⅓ cup of sugar.

Add eggs and raisins

  1. Beat 3 eggs in a separate bowl.

  2. Mix the beaten eggs into the mixture.

  3. Fold in 1 cup of seeded raisins.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a baking dish.

  2. Cover the baking dish.

  3. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 3 hours.

  4. Stir 3 or 4 times during the first hour to prevent the raisins from settling.

  5. Serve with cream flavored to taste.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

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.

  1. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Corn + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  3. Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Corn + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,345 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  5. Corn + raisintop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together180 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Corn meal
Forms the thick body of the pudding as it cooks in the hot water.
Eggs
Bind the pudding and help it set firm as it bakes.
Rich sweet milk
Adds moisture and richness, softening the cornmeal into a custard-like texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps browning on the baked surface.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smoother, more tender texture.

The step that matters

Cook the cornmeal thoroughly. Cornmeal must be fully cooked in the boiling water before the milk is added, so the starch gels and the grain loses its raw, gritty taste and texture.

Swap the raisin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (corn, milk, butter, sugar, egg):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Raisinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against corn, milk, butter, sugar, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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