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.
Make the pudding
Scald the Indian meal in 1 quart of milk.
Add the remaining milk, molasses, eggs, and salt to the mixture.
Pour the mixture into a pudding dish.
Bake
Dot the top with small bits of butter.
Bake for 3 hours at 300°F (150°C).
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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Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together118,967 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together88,785 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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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
- Indian meal
- Cornmeal thickens the milk as it scalds, giving the pudding its body and grainy texture.
- Molasses
- Adds sweetness, dark color, and a deep caramel-like flavor.
- Eggs
- Set during baking to bind the pudding into a sliceable custard.
- Milk
- Forms the liquid base that the cornmeal thickens and the eggs set.
- Butter
- Melts over the top during baking, adding richness and fat to the surface.
The step that matters
Scald the Indian meal in the milk. Scalding cooks the cornmeal starch so it thickens and softens properly. Adding it to cold milk or skipping the scald can leave the pudding gritty and thin.
“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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