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Dessert

Indian-corn Pudding

A baked pudding made with milk, cornmeal, molasses, ginger, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Molasses and ginger are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,116 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Indian-corn 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

  1. Scald the milk in a saucepan.

  2. Stir in the cornmeal, salt, molasses, and ginger until well combined.

  3. Pour the mixture into a baking dish.

Bake

  1. Bake at 300°F (150°C) for three hours.

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. Molasses + gingertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Milk + gingertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,519 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  3. Milk + molassestop 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

Milk
Provides the liquid base and richness, and its starches and proteins help the pudding set.
Cornmeal
Its starch thickens as it cooks in the liquid, giving the pudding its body.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark color, and moisture, and deepens the flavor during baking.
Ginger
Adds warm, spicy aroma that balances the sweetness of the molasses.

The step that matters

Bake at 300°F (150°C) for three hours. Cornmeal needs long, gentle heat to fully swell and soften, so the pudding sets evenly. Baking too hot can scorch the milk and sugars or leave the cornmeal grainy.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Clovefits about as well
  3. Gingerthe original
  4. Allspicefits about as well

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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