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Dessert

Baked Indian Pudding

A baked pudding made with milk, Indian meal, egg, sugar, molasses, butter, spices, raisins, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Baked Indian Pudding

Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Baked 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 base

  1. Heat the milk in a saucepan until it is scalding hot.

  2. Dissolve the Indian meal in a little cold milk, then stir it into the hot milk.

  3. Cook the mixture for a short time.

  4. Cool the mixture.

  5. Add the remaining ingredients.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into a baking dish and bake for 2 hours at 300°F (150°C).

  2. When nearly done, pour 1 cup of milk over the pudding.

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.

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.

  1. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cinnamon + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Ginger + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  5. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Milk
Forms the liquid base that the cornmeal thickens into a pudding.
Indian meal
Thickens the milk as it cooks, giving the pudding its body.
Egg
Adds structure and richness, helping the pudding set as it bakes.
Molasses
Adds dark color and a deep, sweet flavor.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and adds to its browning during baking.
Raisins
Add pockets of chewy sweetness throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Dissolving the Indian meal in cold milk before stirring it into the hot milk. Cornmeal added directly to hot liquid clumps as its starch grabs the liquid unevenly. Mixing it first into a little cold milk spreads the particles so they thicken smoothly.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Clovefits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Cardamomfits better
  4. Gingerthe original

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