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Dessert

Indian Pudding

A baked cornmeal and bread crumb pudding with raisins, molasses, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. 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

  1. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).

  2. In a large bowl, combine cornmeal, bread crumbs, and salt.

  3. In a separate bowl, mix melted butter, molasses, brown sugar, milk, and cold water.

  4. Beat in the eggs until well combined.

  5. Pour the wet mixture into the dry ingredients and stir in the raisins.

  6. Transfer the mixture to a greased baking dish.

Bake

  1. Bake for three 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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Molasses + sugartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Molasses + raisintop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,577 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

Cornmeal
Forms the thick, starchy body that sets into a spoonable pudding as it bakes.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and help it set firm during baking.
Molasses
Adds deep sweetness and a dark color, with a slightly bitter edge.
Milk
Provides the liquid that the cornmeal absorbs and that gives the custard its richness.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and add softness to the texture of the pudding.

The step that matters

Baking until set. Cornmeal thickens slowly as its starch gelatinizes and the eggs coagulate. Pulling the pudding too early leaves it loose and watery, while baking too long can make it dry and stiff.

Swap the raisin

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits about as well
  3. Raisinthe original
  4. Applefits about as well

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