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Dessert

Baked Indian Pudding

A baked pudding made from milk, cornmeal, sugar, molasses, eggs, butter, and cinnamon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Baked Indian Pudding

Why it works: Milk and butter 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 ↓

Baked Indian Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA rather slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the custard

  1. Heat the milk to boiling point.

  2. Stir in the cornmeal and let it boil briefly.

  3. Remove from heat and add butter, sugar, and molasses.

  4. Once cooler, add the eggs and mix well.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) for about an hour.

  2. Serve with butter as a sauce.

  3. Optionally add raisins.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Molasses + cinnamontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

Yellow cornmeal
Thickens the milk as it boils, giving the pudding its body.
Eggs
Set during baking to give the pudding a firm, custard-like structure.
Molasses
Adds deep sweetness, dark colour and a rich, slightly bitter flavour.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth mouthfeel to the pudding.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the cornmeal thickens as it simmers.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and balances the molasses.

The step that matters

Add the eggs only once the mixture has cooled. Eggs set by coagulating proteins, so adding them to very hot mixture can scramble them and leave a grainy texture.

“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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