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Dessert

Boiled Indian Pudding

A boiled pudding made with eggs, sour milk, cornmeal, dried fruit, and served with sweetened cream flavored with nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Boiled Indian Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Dissolve the baking soda in the sour milk.

  2. Sift in cornmeal until the mixture is thick, like griddle-cake batter.

  3. Stir in the dried fruit.

Boil

  1. Place the mixture in a bag and boil for one hour.

Make the sauce

  1. For the sauce, sweeten the cream and flavor it with nutmeg.

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. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Cream + saucetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,787 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Cream + nutmegtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,920 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  4. Sauce + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,147 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Milk + nutmegtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,685 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the batter and help it set as it cooks.
Sour milk
Its acidity reacts with the baking soda and adds a tangy flavor.
Baking soda
Reacts with the sour milk's acid to produce gas that lightens the pudding.
Cornmeal
Thickens the liquid and gives the pudding its body and structure.
Dried fruit
Adds sweetness and chewy texture throughout the pudding.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth texture to the sauce.

The step that matters

Boiling in the bag. The bag must be sealed well so water cannot enter and the pudding stays moist and holds its shape. Keeping the water boiling steadily lets the pudding cook through evenly over the full hour.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Nutmegthe original
  2. Cinnamonfits about as well
  3. Gingerfits less well
  4. Capersfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, milk, cream, sauce, 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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