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 ↓
Baked Indian Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Make the custard base
Scald the milk in a saucepan.
Stir in the cornmeal and let it cool until lukewarm.
Add the butter, beaten eggs, sugar, and raisins, and mix well.
Bake and serve
Pour the mixture into a baking dish.
Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 1.5 hours.
Serve with sauce.
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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
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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Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together12,481 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Milk + raisintop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,155 recipes
Shared aroma: decanoic acid (acides aroma).
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Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together118,967 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together98,233 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Eggs
- Bind the mixture and set into a firm, custard-like texture as they cook.
- Cornmeal
- Thickens the hot milk and gives the pudding its body and grainy texture.
- Milk
- Forms the liquid base that the cornmeal thickens and the eggs set.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps the pudding brown slightly as it bakes.
- Butter
- Adds fat for richness and a smoother, more tender crumb.
The step that matters
Let the cornmeal cool to lukewarm before adding the eggs. Adding beaten eggs to very hot cornmeal mixture can scramble them. Cooling it to lukewarm lets the eggs blend in smoothly and set evenly during baking.
Swap the raisin
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, butter, egg, sugar):
- Vanillafits better
- Figfits about as well
- Coconutfits about as well
- Raisinthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against milk, butter, egg, sugar. 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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