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Dessert

Old Fashioned Baked Indian Pudding

A baked pudding made from yellow Indian meal, milk, suet, molasses, sugar, ginger, and cinnamon, served hot or cold.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,380 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Old Fashioned Baked Indian Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA very moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a very moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the pudding base

  1. Sift the yellow Indian meal into a bowl and add 6 tablespoons of milk. Stir until smooth.

  2. In a double boiler, bring 1 pint of milk to a boil. Slowly pour it over the Indian meal, stirring until smooth.

  3. Return the mixture to the double boiler and boil rapidly for 10 minutes, stirring constantly.

  4. Remove from heat and add salt, chopped beef suet, molasses, sugar, ginger, and cinnamon. Mix well.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the pudding into a well-buttered dish and let it cool.

  2. Once cooled, pour 1 pint of cold milk over the pudding without stirring.

  3. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for 3 hours.

  4. Serve hot with lemon or wine sauce. This pudding is also delicious cold.

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. Ginger + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Molasses + sugartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Yellow indian meal
Cornmeal forms the thick body of the pudding as it cooks and sets.
Milk
Liquid that hydrates the cornmeal and gives the pudding a creamy, custard-like texture.
Beef suet
Adds fat that enriches the pudding and keeps it moist and tender.
Molasses
Adds sweetness and a deep, dark flavor while helping the pudding brown in the oven.

The step that matters

Boil the cornmeal mixture rapidly while stirring constantly. Cornmeal thickens as its starch swells in hot liquid. Constant stirring prevents scorching and lumps, and the rapid boil gives a smooth, properly thickened base before baking.

Swap the ginger

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, beef, molasses, sugar, cinnamon, butter. 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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