Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. 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 batter
Boil the milk in a pot.
Stir in the Indian meal and grated bread or crackers.
Add the sugar, eggs, butter, and salt, and mix well until combined.
Bake
Pour the mixture into a baking dish.
Bake for 3 hours at 300°F (150°C).
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.
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Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together27,232 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together11,466 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
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Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together22,662 recipes
Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
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Walnut + buttertop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,832 recipes
Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
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 other ingredients thicken and set into a custard.
- Indian meal
- Cornmeal swells and thickens as it cooks, giving the pudding its body and texture.
- Bread or crackers
- Absorbs liquid and adds further thickening, giving a softer, more tender body.
- Eggs
- Set during baking to bind the pudding into a sliceable custard.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps the top brown during the long bake.
- Butter
- Adds fat for richness and a smoother mouthfeel.
The step that matters
Baking low and slow. Eggs set gently at low heat; higher heat can curdle the custard and make it grainy or watery. The cornmeal thickens slowly as it bakes, so the long, gentle bake gives a smooth, sliceable texture.
Swap the walnut
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, bread, sugar, egg, butter):
- Pecansfits better
- Almondfits better
- Cocoafits about as well
- Walnutthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against milk, bread, sugar, 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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