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Dessert

Baked Indian-pudding

A baked dessert made from yellow Indian meal, molasses, milk, salt, cinnamon or ginger, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Baked Indian-pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the base

  1. Mix together the yellow Indian meal and molasses.

  2. Gradually pour in the boiling milk while mixing.

  3. Add salt, ground cinnamon or ginger, and butter; let cool completely.

  4. Transfer the mixture to an earthen pudding dish.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the cold milk on top without stirring.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for 3 hours, ensuring it does not burn.

  3. Serve hot or cold.

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

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Molasses + cinnamontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Cinnamon + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,784 recipes

    Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).

  5. Molasses + milktop 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

Yellow indian meal
Cornmeal thickens the pudding and gives it its grainy, structured body.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark color and a deep caramel-like flavor during baking.
Milk
Provides the liquid that cooks the cornmeal and, as it bakes, a creamy custardy texture.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smoother mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Pour the cold milk on top without stirring. The cold milk layer must bake undisturbed so it sets into a custard on top while the cornmeal base thickens underneath. Stirring would blend the layers and prevent this separation.

“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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