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Dessert

Corn-meal Fruit Pudding

A baked pudding made with cornmeal, milk, flour, eggs, sugar, butter, raisins, spices, baking soda, and cream of tartar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and raisin match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Corn-meal Fruit Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA brisk oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a brisk oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Scald 1 pint of milk and mix it with the cornmeal, stirring well.

  2. Let it cool, then add the flour mixed with 1 pint of cold milk to form a batter.

Make the custard

  1. Heat the remaining 1 pint of milk until scalding, then add the sugar and beaten eggs.

  2. Gradually beat this mixture into the cooled batter until well combined.

  3. Stir in the melted butter, spices, and the floured raisins.

  4. Beat the mixture vigorously for 2 minutes.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour into a buttered dish and bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C), covering with paper as it browns.

  2. Bake for about 45 minutes until done.

  3. Serve hot with butter and sugar.

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. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Mace + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the mixture and help it set as the pudding bakes.
Flour
Thickens the batter and gives the pudding body and structure.
Milk
Supplies the liquid base and moisture for a tender, creamy texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the top brown during baking.
Butter
Adds richness and fat for a softer, more flavorful crumb.
Raisins
Add pockets of sweetness and chewy fruit through the pudding.

The step that matters

Gradually beat the egg mixture into the cooled batter. Adding the hot egg mixture slowly to a cooled batter, while beating, keeps the eggs from scrambling and gives a smooth, evenly set pudding.

Swap the mace

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

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

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