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Dessert

Indian Pudding

A sweet coconut pudding made with eggs, butter, spongecake, milk, and coconut, baked in a puff pastry-lined dish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓

Indian Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Beat the eggs with the butter and crumbled spongecake.

  2. Boil the grated coconut in the milk for 10 minutes, then let it cool.

  3. Stir the cooled milk into the egg mixture.

Bake

  1. Line a dish with puff paste and pour the mixture in.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven (350°F / 175°C) for 30 to 45 minutes.

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

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

  2. Milk + coconuttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,648 recipes

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

  3. Butter + coconuttop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

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

  4. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set the custard and give the pudding its structure as they cook.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, tender texture to the custard.
Crumbled penny spongecake
Soaks up liquid and adds body and a light, tender crumb.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard and carries the coconut flavour.
Grated coconut
Adds coconut flavour and aroma to the milk.
Puff paste
Forms a crisp, flaky shell that holds the custard while it bakes.

The step that matters

Stir the cooled milk into the egg mixture. If the milk is still hot, it can start cooking the eggs unevenly and cause curdling or a grainy texture. Letting it cool first keeps the custard smooth and evenly set.

Swap the coconut

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Coconutthe original
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Peachfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against 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.

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