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Steamed Indian Pudding

A steamed pudding made with sour milk, Indian meal, rye flour, molasses, raisins, and a molasses sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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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 ↓

Steamed Indian Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix sour milk, Indian meal, rye flour, molasses, and salt.

  2. Dissolve baking soda in a little warm water and stir it into the mixture.

  3. Fold in the raisins.

Steam and make the sauce

  1. Pour the mixture into a mold and steam for 3 to 4 hours.

  2. For the sauce, combine molasses, water, butter, salt, and vinegar in a saucepan.

  3. Boil the sauce for 15 to 20 minutes.

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

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

  2. Rye + raisintop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  3. Milk + ryetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together918 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  4. Molasses + raisintop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,577 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Sauce + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Sauce and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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

Sour milk
Its acidity reacts with the baking soda, helping the pudding rise and turn tender.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the sour milk to produce carbon dioxide, lightening the pudding.
Indian meal
Cornmeal that gives the pudding its body and characteristic grainy texture.
Rye flour
Adds structure and a distinct, earthy flavor alongside the cornmeal.
Molasses
Provides sweetness, dark color and moisture, and flavors both the pudding and the sauce.

The step that matters

Dissolving the baking soda and folding it in. Baking soda must be fully dissolved and mixed evenly so it reacts with the sour milk's acid throughout the batter; unevenly mixed soda leaves dense spots or bitter pockets and uneven rising.

Swap the raisin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, rye, molasses, sauce, butter, vinegar):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Vanillafits about as well
  3. Cherryfits about as well
  4. Raisinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, rye, molasses, sauce, butter, vinegar. 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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