Name: Mock Indian Pudding
Ingredients: 2 slices white bread, buttered; ½ cup molasses; 1 egg; 1 quart milk

Why it works: Bread and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,466 recipes. Both carry 2-undecenal, which smells sweet. The science ↓

Mock Indian Pudding

Ingredients

2 slices white bread, buttered
½ cup molasses
1 egg
1 quart milk

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 the oven to 300°F (150°C).
Layer the buttered bread in a baking dish.

Make and bake

In a bowl, mix molasses, egg, and milk until well combined.
Pour the mixture over the bread.
Bake for 1.5 hours.

Serve

Serve warm with 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.

Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together11,466 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together22,662 recipes

Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together88,785 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Molasses + milktop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together7,243 recipes

Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).
Bread + molassestop 31% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together529 recipes

Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

White bread: Soaks up the custard and forms the soft, sliceable body of the pudding.
Egg: Sets the milk mixture as it bakes, giving the pudding its firm, custard-like texture.
Milk: Provides the liquid that the bread absorbs and that sets into a creamy custard.
Molasses: Adds sweetness, dark color and a deep, caramel-like flavor to the custard.

“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.