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Dessert

Baked Indian Pudding

A sweet pudding made from milk, Indian meal, molasses, butter, and sugar, baked until thick.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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

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.

Prepare

  1. Mix Indian meal, molasses, sugar, and butter in a bowl.

  2. Heat the milk and pour it slowly over the mixture to prevent lumping.

Cook and bake

  1. Cook in a double boiler until it thickens.

  2. Transfer to a baking dish and bake for 1 to 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.

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. Molasses + sugartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Butter + walnuttop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Milk + walnuttop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,236 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

  5. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Milk
Provides the liquid base that thickens into a custard-like pudding.
Indian meal
Cornmeal that thickens the milk as it cooks, giving the pudding its body.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark color, and a deep caramel flavor.
Butter
Adds fat for richer flavor and a softer, smoother texture.

The step that matters

Pouring the hot milk slowly over the mixture. Cornmeal clumps when it meets hot liquid too quickly. Adding the milk slowly while stirring keeps the meal dispersed so the pudding bakes smooth rather than lumpy.

Swap the walnut

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Pecansfits about as well
  3. Cocoafits about as well
  4. Walnutthe original

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