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.
Make the custard
Heat 1½ cups of milk in a saucepan until scalding hot.
Stir in the cornmeal and mix with a little cold milk.
Remove from heat and add sugar, salt, and butter.
Once cool, mix in the eggs, flour, allspice, and the remaining milk.
Bake and serve
Pour the mixture into a baking dish and bake at 300°F (150°C) for two hours.
Serve with creamed butter and sugar.
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 + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + allspicetop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,302 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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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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
- Swells in the hot milk and thickens the mixture, giving the pudding its body.
- Eggs
- Set during baking to give the pudding a firm, sliceable structure.
- Milk
- Provides the liquid that the cornmeal cooks in and keeps the pudding moist.
- Flour
- Adds extra thickening so the custard holds its shape.
- Butter
- Adds fat for richness and a smoother, softer texture.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the pudding and helps it brown slightly in the oven.
The step that matters
Let the mixture cool before adding the eggs. Eggs added to a very hot mixture can scramble and curdle. Cooling first lets the eggs blend in evenly, so they set into a smooth custard when baked.
Swap the allspice
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, sugar, flour, egg, butter):
- Cinnamonfits better
- Nutmegfits better
- Jalapenofits better
- Allspicethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against milk, sugar, flour, egg, 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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