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Dessert

Flour and Indian Pudding

A baked pudding made with flour, Indian meal, eggs, milk, molasses, salt, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Flour and 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 batter

  1. Combine the flour, Indian meal, eggs, boiling milk, molasses, and salt in a large bowl. Mix until well combined.

  2. Pour the mixture into a baking dish.

  3. Pour the cream over the top just before baking.

Bake

  1. Bake in a preheated oven at 300°F (150°C) for 3 hours.

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 + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + molassestop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,429 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Eggs
Set the custard as they cook, giving the pudding structure and a firm, sliceable body.
Indian meal
Thickens the pudding and gives it its characteristic grainy, hearty texture.
Flour
Adds body and helps thicken the batter so it holds together after baking.
Molasses
Provides sweetness, deep color, and a rich, slightly bitter caramel flavor.
Cream
Adds fat and richness, forming a creamy layer on top as the pudding bakes.

The step that matters

Pour the cream over the top just before baking. Cream poured on the surface, rather than mixed in, stays rich and forms a distinct layer as the pudding bakes slowly. Adding it too early would blend it into the batter and lose that contrast.

“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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