Skip to main content
Dessert

Boiled Indian Pudding

A boiled pudding made with sour milk, molasses, raisins, suet, baking soda, and cornmeal.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Molasses and raisin are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,577 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Boiled Indian Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, combine sour milk, molasses, raisins, chopped suet, and baking soda.

  2. Gradually add cornmeal until the mixture is thick.

Cook

  1. Pour the mixture into a greased pudding mold.

  2. Boil for about 2 hours, ensuring the water level remains consistent.

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Milk + raisintop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,155 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanoic acid (acides aroma).

  3. Milk + molassestop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,243 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

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 baking soda, producing gas that lifts the pudding and gives a tender crumb.
Cornmeal
Starch that thickens the liquid and gives the pudding its body as it cooks.
Molasses
Adds sweetness and deep color, and contributes moisture to the finished pudding.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk to release carbon dioxide, helping the pudding rise.
Suet
Adds fat that enriches the texture and keeps the pudding moist as it cooks.

The step that matters

Adding the cornmeal gradually. Cornmeal must be stirred in slowly so its starch hydrates evenly without lumps. Adding it all at once can leave dry clumps, and the mixture thickens unevenly as it cooks.

Swap the raisin

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

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

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

More indian pudding recipes

Baked 36Boiled 26Steamed 12Apple 8New England 4Plain 4 See all 344 →

You might also like

Molasses CookiesMolasses Cookies96 recipesMolasses CakeMolasses Cake90 recipesMolasses Sponge CakeMolasses Sponge Cake9 recipesWhite CakeWhite Cake431 recipes