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
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Make the custard base
Boil the milk in a large pot.
Stir in the cornmeal while the milk is boiling.
Allow the mixture to cool.
Once cool, add the flour, eggs, spices, molasses, and butter. Mix well until combined.
Bake
Pour the mixture into a baking dish.
Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 2 hours.
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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
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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Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together18,623 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + nutmegtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together14,685 recipes
Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Cornmeal
- Thickens the milk as it cooks, giving the pudding its body and firm, spoonable texture.
- Eggs
- Set during baking to bind the pudding and give it a custard-like structure.
- Molasses
- Adds sweetness and deep flavor, and contributes to the pudding's dark color.
- Milk
- Forms the liquid base that the cornmeal thickens and the eggs set.
- All-purpose flour
- Adds extra thickening to help the pudding hold its shape as it bakes.
The step that matters
Stir in the cornmeal while the milk is boiling. Cornmeal can settle and clump if added to cool liquid or left unstirred. Adding it to boiling milk while stirring lets the starch disperse evenly and thicken the base smoothly.
Swap the nutmeg
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, flour, egg, molasses, butter):
- Cinnamonfits better
- Nutmegthe original
- Jalapenofits less well
- Allspicefits less well
Fit is the average pairing score against milk, flour, egg, molasses, butter. 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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