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Dessert

A Very Simple Indian Pudding

A simple apple pudding made with milk, cornmeal, molasses, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,104 recipes. Both carry 4-heptenal, which smells creamy, biscuit. The science ↓

A Very Simple 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 pudding

  1. Combine chopped apples and milk in a pot.

  2. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  3. Stir in meal until the mixture thickens to a hasty pudding consistency.

  4. Add a little cold milk and molasses.

  5. Season with salt to taste.

Bake overnight

  1. Transfer to an earthen dish.

  2. Let it stand in the oven overnight 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. Apple + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,104 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

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

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  3. Apple + molassestop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together970 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Sweet apples
Break down while cooking to give the pudding sweetness and soft body.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the meal thickens and slow baking turns creamy.
Meal (cornmeal or similar)
Starch thickens the hot milk into a hasty pudding texture.
Molasses
Adds deep sweetness and color as the pudding bakes slowly.

The step that matters

Letting it stand in the oven overnight. Long, low heat lets the milk sugars brown slowly and the starch set fully, so the pudding turns thick and caramelized rather than watery. Too high a temperature can scorch the milk on the bottom.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Applethe original

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.

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