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Dessert

Indian Pudding

A sweet cornmeal pudding made with milk, eggs, molasses, butter, spices, and raisins, baked until set.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and cinnamon 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

Ingredients

Directions

Make the cornmeal base

  1. Heat the milk in a double boiler until scalding hot.

  2. Pour the hot milk over the salted cornmeal.

  3. Stir the mixture carefully to prevent lumps.

  4. Return the mixture to the heat.

  5. Cook for 30 minutes, stirring often.

Mix and bake

  1. Beat together the molasses and butter.

  2. Add the whipped eggs, spices, and the cornmeal mixture, beating well.

  3. Stir in the raisins.

  4. Transfer the mixture to a buttered pudding dish.

  5. Bake the pudding covered for 45 minutes.

  6. Stir the pudding from the bottom.

  7. Brown the top.

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. Ginger + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cinnamon + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

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

  4. Cinnamon + macetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  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.
Eggs
Set the custard and add richness and structure as the pudding bakes.
Yellow cornmeal
Thickens the milk as it cooks, giving the pudding its body.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark color and a deep caramel flavor.
Butter
Adds fat for a richer texture and smoother mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Stirring the cornmeal into the hot milk. Cornmeal added to liquid can clump as its starch hydrates unevenly. Stirring carefully while adding the hot milk spreads the granules out so the pudding cooks smooth rather than lumpy.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Clovefits better
  3. Cardamomfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, egg, molasses, butter, ginger, cinnamon, raisin. 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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