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 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare the batter
Scald the milk and add salt.
Stir in the Indian meal and ginger, then let it stand for 20 minutes.
Add the molasses, eggs, and butter, mixing well.
Bake
Pour the mixture into a baking dish.
Bake at 300°F (150°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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Ginger + walnuttop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together737 recipes
Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
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Ginger + molassestop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together4,116 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Butter + walnuttop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,832 recipes
Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
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Milk + walnuttop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,236 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Yellow indian meal
- Cornmeal thickens the milk and gives the pudding its body as it bakes.
- Eggs
- Eggs set the mixture during baking, giving it a custard-like firmness.
- Molasses
- Molasses adds sweetness, dark color, and a deep, caramel-like flavor.
- Milk
- Milk forms the liquid base that the meal swells in and the eggs set.
- Butter
- Butter adds richness and fat, softening the texture and carrying flavor.
The step that matters
Letting the meal stand before baking. Cornmeal needs time to hydrate and swell in the hot milk; resting lets it thicken evenly so the pudding does not stay grainy or separate in the oven.
Swap the ginger
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, molasses, egg, butter, walnut):
- Cinnamonfits better
- Nutmegfits better
- Allspicefits about as well
- Gingerthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against milk, molasses, egg, butter, walnut. 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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