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Dessert

Baked Indian Pudding with Apples

A baked pudding made with Indian meal, flour, molasses, suet, and apples.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,104 recipes. Both carry 4-heptenal, which smells creamy, biscuit. The science ↓

Baked Indian Pudding with Apples

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

  1. Pare and core the apples.

  2. In a bowl, mix Indian meal, flour, salt, molasses, and chopped suet.

Make the batter

  1. Boil some milk.

  2. Gradually pour the milk into the mixture, stirring well.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture over the apples in a baking dish.

  2. Bake at 300°F (150°C) for three hours.

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. Apple + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,104 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  2. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + molassestop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,429 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Molasses + milktop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,243 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  5. Apple + flourtop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,140 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Indian meal
Forms the thick body of the pudding as it absorbs liquid and sets while baking.
Molasses
Adds deep sweetness, dark color, and a rich caramel-like flavor.
Apples
Release moisture and soften as they bake, adding tartness and fruitiness beneath the pudding.
Suet
Adds fat that enriches the texture and keeps the pudding moist.
Flour
Adds extra structure so the pudding holds together when baked.

The step that matters

Gradually pour the milk into the mixture, stirring well. Adding hot milk slowly while stirring prevents the cornmeal from clumping into lumps, so the batter bakes up smooth and evenly thickened.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, molasses, milk):

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, molasses, milk. 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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