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Cornmeal Pudding

A steamed pudding made with flour, cornmeal, milk, sugar, raisins, candied peel, molasses, sour cream or buttermilk, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and raisin match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Cornmeal Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, combine flour, cornmeal, milk, sugar, raisins, candied peel, molasses, sour cream or buttermilk, and baking soda, and mix until well combined.

  2. Pour the mixture into a greased steaming dish.

Steam and serve

  1. Steam for 3 hours.

  2. Serve with sauce of your choice.

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. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Raisin + molassestop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,577 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

What each ingredient does

All-purpose flour
Provides structure as the starch that sets the batter into a firm pudding.
Cornmeal
Gives the pudding its grainy, substantial body and characteristic texture.
Sour cream or buttermilk
Adds acidity that reacts with the baking soda to lift the pudding and add tenderness.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic dairy to produce gas that helps the pudding rise.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, moisture and a deep, dark flavour.
Milk
Hydrates the flour and cornmeal so the batter becomes pourable and moist.

The step that matters

Steam for the full 3 hours. Steaming gently cooks the starch and cornmeal through with steady moisture. Cutting the time short leaves the centre wet and dense, while the steam keeps the pudding moist rather than dry.

Swap the raisin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, milk, sugar, molasses, cream):

  1. Raisinthe original
  2. Vanillafits about as well
  3. Figfits less well
  4. Strawberryfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, milk, sugar, molasses, cream. 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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