Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. 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.
Prepare
Place the milk in a pail.
Set the pail in hot water.
Boil 1 pint of milk.
Make the mixture
Stir in 1 cup of Indian meal.
Add ¾ cup of molasses.
Remove from heat.
Stir in ¼ teaspoon salt.
Stir in 1 teaspoon cinnamon.
Add the remaining cold milk, except for ½ pint.
Bake
Butter a baking dish.
Pour the mixture in.
Pour the reserved milk around the mixture without stirring.
Bake at 300°F (150°C) for 4 hours.
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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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together12,655 recipes
Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).
-
Molasses + cinnamontop 11% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together4,928 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Cinnamon + buttertop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together17,784 recipes
Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).
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Milk + molassestop 21% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked 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
- Forms the liquid base that the cornmeal thickens and bakes into a custard.
- Indian meal
- Cornmeal thickens the hot milk and gives the pudding its body as it bakes.
- Molasses
- Adds sweetness, dark color and a deep, caramel-like flavor.
The step that matters
Pour the reserved milk around the mixture without stirring. Pouring the cold milk on top without stirring keeps it as a separate layer while the pudding bakes. Stirring it in would blend it through the cornmeal mixture and change the texture of the finished custard.
“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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