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Dessert

Boiled Indian Pudding

A pudding made by boiling a batter of sour milk, eggs, cornmeal, dried fruit, and baking soda, served with sweetened cream and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,787 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Boiled Indian Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Dissolve the baking soda in the sour milk.

  2. Beat the eggs and mix them with the milk.

  3. Sift in dry cornmeal until the mixture is thick, like griddle cake batter.

  4. Stir in the dried fruit.

Cook and serve

  1. Place the mixture in a bag and boil for one hour.

  2. For the sauce, sweeten cream and flavor it with nutmeg.

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. Cream + saucetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,787 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Cream + nutmegtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,920 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  3. Milk + nutmegtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,685 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Egg + nutmegtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together24,744 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

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

Egg and nutmeg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 24,744 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

Sour milk
Its acidity reacts with the baking soda and adds a tangy flavor to the pudding.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in sour milk to release gas, helping the pudding rise and lighten.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and help it set into a firm, sliceable pudding when cooked.
Dry cornmeal
Thickens the liquid and gives the pudding its body and grainy texture as it cooks.
Dried fruit
Adds sweetness, moisture and chewy pockets throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Sifting in the cornmeal to the right thickness. Cornmeal thickens as it cooks and absorbs liquid. Adding it until the batter resembles griddle cake batter gives a body that sets properly. Too little leaves the pudding loose, and too much makes it stiff and dense.

“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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