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Dessert

Apple Indian Pudding

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and apple are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,104 recipes. Both carry 4-heptenal, which smells creamy, biscuit. The science ↓

Apple 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 pudding

  1. Scald the milk in a saucepan.

  2. Add the Indian meal to the scalded milk and stir well.

  3. Mix in the molasses, cream, salt, and apple pieces.

  4. Pour the mixture into a baking dish.

Bake

  1. Bake at 350°F (175°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. Milk + appletop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,104 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Molasses + creamtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,408 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Milk + molassestop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,243 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  5. Molasses + appletop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together970 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

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 into a soft, pudding-like set as it bakes.
Molasses
Adds deep sweetness and a dark color that browns during baking.
Cream
Adds fat for a richer, smoother texture in the baked pudding.
Apples
Add moisture and fruity sweetness that softens and blends into the pudding.
Milk
Provides the liquid that the cornmeal absorbs and sets with heat.

The step that matters

Scald the milk before adding the Indian meal. Hot milk hydrates cornmeal more evenly, helping it thicken smoothly instead of forming lumps. Stirring the meal in well while the milk is hot keeps the texture uniform through the long bake.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Strawberryfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, 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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