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Dessert

Baked Indian Pudding, No. 3

A sweet pudding made from milk, Indian meal, molasses, apples, and spices, baked until set.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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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 ↓

Baked Indian Pudding, No. 3

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pudding base

  1. Scald the milk in a saucepan.

  2. Stir in the Indian meal that has been wet with a little milk.

  3. Boil for five minutes, then remove from heat.

Add flavourings and bake

  1. Add the molasses, salt, butter, apples, and nutmeg.

  2. Pour the mixture into a baking dish and bake for 2 hours.

  3. Serve hot with whipped cream.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Milk + appletop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,104 recipes

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

  3. Apple + nutmegtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,790 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Butter + appletop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,706 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Milk + nutmegtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,685 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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 boils, giving the pudding its body.
Molasses
Adds dark sweetness and a deep, treacle-like flavour.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the cornmeal thickens and the pudding bakes in.
Apples
Add moisture and a mild tartness that balances the sweet molasses.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, softening the texture of the pudding.

The step that matters

Stirring the meal into the scalded milk. Cornmeal added to hot liquid can clump if it is not first wetted with a little milk. Wetting it evenly lets the starch disperse and thicken the pudding smoothly.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Clovefits better
  3. Nutmegthe original
  4. Gingerfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, molasses, butter, apple. 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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Baked 36Boiled 26Steamed 12Apple 8New England 4Plain 4 See all 344 →

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