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Dessert

Indian Pudding

A sweet cornmeal pudding made with milk, molasses, eggs, butter, ginger, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Indian Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the cornmeal base

  1. Boil the milk in a pot.

  2. Remove from heat and stir in the cornmeal and molasses.

  3. Return to heat and stir until it boils.

Finish and bake

  1. Add the beaten eggs, butter, cold milk, salt, and ginger.

  2. Pour into a pudding dish and bake for 2 hours at 300°F (150°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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Molasses + gingertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Milk + gingertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,519 recipes

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

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 swells into and thickens as it cooks.
Cornmeal
Thickens the liquid as its starch swells with heat, giving the pudding body.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark color, and a deep, caramel-like flavor.
Eggs
Set during baking to bind the pudding into a sliceable, custard-like texture.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smoother mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Stirring the cornmeal mixture back to a boil. Cornmeal is heavy and settles quickly, so it can scorch on the bottom of the pot. Constant stirring keeps it even and lets the starch thicken fully before the other ingredients go in.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Clovefits about as well
  4. Gingerthe original

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