Skip to main content
Dessert

Indian Pudding

A sweet cornmeal and flour pudding baked with milk, sugar, molasses, spices, eggs, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Cinnamon and ginger match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,380 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Indian Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the custard

  1. Scald the cornmeal and flour in the milk.

  2. Let the mixture cool, then add the sugar, molasses, spices, eggs, and butter.

Bake

  1. Pour into a well-buttered baking dish and place lumps of butter on top.

  2. Bake at 300°F (150°C) for three hours, covering for the first hour and a half to two 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. Cinnamon + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Cinnamon + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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 characteristic grainy texture.
Eggs
Set during baking, binding the pudding into a sliceable custard structure.
Molasses
Adds deep sweetness and colour along with the characteristic dark, rich flavour.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth mouthfeel as it melts into the pudding.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the cornmeal thickens and the eggs set.

The step that matters

Covering the dish for the first part of baking. Covering traps steam so the pudding cooks gently and stays moist; the cover is removed later so the top can brown and the custard can firm.

Swap the ginger

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, sugar, molasses, cinnamon, egg, butter, milk):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Clovefits about as well
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, sugar, molasses, cinnamon, egg, butter, milk. 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.

More indian pudding recipes

Baked 36Boiled 26Steamed 12Apple 8New England 4Plain 4 See all 344 →

You might also like

Ginger CookiesGinger Cookies213 recipesMolasses CookiesMolasses Cookies96 recipesGinger CakeGinger Cake93 recipesMolasses CakeMolasses Cake90 recipes