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Dessert

Indian Pudding

A baked custard made with milk, Indian meal, molasses, sugar, eggs, spices, and cold milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,536 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Indian Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the batter

  1. Bring 2 quarts of milk to a boil.

  2. Add 2 cups of Indian meal, ½ cup molasses, ½ cup sugar, beaten eggs, ½ teaspoon ginger, ½ teaspoon allspice, ½ teaspoon cinnamon, 1 teaspoon salt, and 1 pint of cold milk.

  3. Stir all ingredients together.

Bake

  1. Butter a baking dish.

  2. Pour the mixture into the dish.

  3. Bake for 2 hours at 350°F (175°C).

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. Allspice + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Ginger + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,620 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

Indian meal
Cornmeal thickens the milk as it cooks, giving the pudding its body.
Eggs
Eggs set during baking, helping the pudding hold together as it cools.
Molasses
Adds deep sweetness and color, along with a rich, slightly bitter flavor.
Milk
Provides the liquid that the cornmeal absorbs and that bakes into a custard.

The step that matters

Bake for 2 hours at 350°F (175°C). Long, moderate baking lets the cornmeal fully swell and the egg proteins set gently, giving a creamy texture rather than a dry or curdled one.

Swap the allspice

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cardamomfits about as well
  3. Clovefits about as well
  4. Allspicethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, molasses, sugar, egg, ginger, 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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