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Dessert

Baked Indian Pudding with Apples

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

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. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).

  2. Peel and core the apples, then place them in a baking dish.

Make the pudding

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

  2. Boil the milk and gradually pour it into the meal mixture, stirring continuously.

  3. Pour the mixture over the apples in the baking dish.

Bake

  1. Bake for 3 hours until set.

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

Sweet apples
Provide the fruit base and natural sweetness that flavours the pudding.
Indian meal
Forms the main body of the pudding and thickens as it sets.
All-purpose flour
Adds extra structure so the pudding holds together when set.
Molasses
Adds dark sweetness and a deep, rich flavour.
Suet
Adds fat that gives the pudding a richer, softer texture.
Milk
Supplies liquid that hydrates the meal and flour so they can set.

The step that matters

Adding the boiling milk to the meal mixture. Pouring the milk in gradually while stirring continuously keeps the starch from clumping into lumps, so the batter stays smooth and sets evenly.

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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