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Dessert

Steamed Indian Pudding

A steamed pudding made with cornmeal, flour, molasses, egg, and leavening agents.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Steamed Indian Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, combine cornmeal, flour, molasses, egg, cream of tartar, and baking soda.

  2. Add milk gradually until the mixture is about as thick as cake batter.

Steam

  1. Pour the mixture into a greased steaming dish.

  2. Steam for 3 hours without removing the cover.

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. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + molassestop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,429 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Cream + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Cornmeal
Provides the coarse body and structure that gives the pudding its texture.
Flour
Adds structure so the batter holds together after steaming.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark color, and moisture to the pudding.
Egg
Binds the batter and helps it set as it cooks.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the batter so it reacts with baking soda to lift the pudding.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the batter to produce gas that helps it rise.

The step that matters

Leave the cover on while steaming. Lifting the lid lets steam escape and the temperature drop, which can stall the rise and leave the pudding dense and unevenly cooked.

“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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