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 your oven to 300°F (150°C).
Make the batter
In a large bowl, combine the milk, molasses, cornmeal, salt, and butter.
Pour the mixture into a flat baking dish.
Bake
Bake for 4 hours on the top shelf of the oven with the lamp low.
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 most of the liquid and milk proteins that set into a soft, custardy texture as it bakes.
- Molasses
- Adds sweetness, deep color and a caramel-like flavor, and keeps the pudding moist.
- Cornmeal
- Its starch thickens the liquid as it heats, giving the pudding body and a grainy structure.
- Butter
- Adds fat for richness and a smoother, more tender mouthfeel.
The step that matters
Long, low bake. Milk proteins and cornmeal starch need sustained gentle heat to set into a soft, creamy pudding. Higher heat can scorch the milk sugars and molasses and curdle the custard before the cornmeal has softened.
“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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