Name: Indian Pudding Made with Crumbs
Ingredients: 1 cup fine bread crumbs; 1 quart skim milk; ½ cup sugar; 1 cup molasses; 2 tablespoons melted butter or other fat; 1 teaspoon ginger; 1 teaspoon cloves; ½ teaspoon cinnamon

Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Indian Pudding Made with Crumbs

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the pudding

Scald the bread crumbs in the milk.
Add the sugar, molasses, melted butter, ginger, cloves, and cinnamon. Mix well and pour into a baking dish.

Bake

Bake for 1½ hours in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C).

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.

Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,189 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
Ginger + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together6,380 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Ginger + clovetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together6,038 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Bread crumbs: Soak up the hot milk and help thicken the pudding into a soft, spoonable set.
Milk: Forms the liquid base that the bread crumbs soften in and the custard sets from.
Molasses: Adds dark color, deep sweetness, and a rich flavor that defines the pudding.
Sugar: Adds sweetness and balances the strong molasses flavor.
Butter or other fat: Adds richness and a smooth mouthfeel to the baked pudding.

Swap the ginger

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, milk, sugar, molasses, butter, clove, cinnamon):

Nutmegfits better
Allspicefits about as well
Gingerthe original
Cardamomfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, milk, sugar, molasses, butter, clove, cinnamon. 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.