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Dessert

Baked Corn Meal Pudding, Without Eggs

A baked pudding made from cornmeal, molasses, milk, ginger, and suet or butter, served warm with hard sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Baked Corn Meal Pudding, Without Eggs

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 ↓

Baked Corn Meal Pudding, Without Eggs

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. In a large bowl, mix the cornmeal and molasses until well combined.

  2. Add the boiling milk, salt, and ginger, and mix thoroughly.

  3. Stir in the chopped suet or butter until evenly distributed.

Bake and serve

  1. Butter a brown earthen pan and pour the mixture in, letting it thicken.

  2. Before baking, pour the cold milk over the mixture without stirring.

  3. Bake in a preheated oven at 300°F (150°C) for 3 hours.

  4. Serve warm with hard sauce.

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.

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.

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Molasses + milktop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,243 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  5. Ginger + eggtop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,337 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Yellow cornmeal
Forms the thick body of the pudding and sets as it bakes.
Cooking molasses
Adds sweetness, deep color, and a rich caramel flavor.
Suet or butter
Adds fat for richness and a moist, tender texture.
Boiling milk
Hydrates the cornmeal and starts the mixture thickening.

The step that matters

Pouring the cold milk without stirring. Keeping the cold milk on top leaves a layer that bakes into a creamy, separate top while the cornmeal base sets beneath. Stirring would mix it in and lose that contrast.

Swap the ginger

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against molasses, milk, egg. 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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