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Dessert

Boiled Indian Pudding

A boiled pudding made from sour milk, molasses, raisins, suet, saleratus, and cornmeal.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Molasses and raisin are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,577 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Boiled Indian Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pudding

  1. In a large bowl, combine sour milk, molasses, raisins, chopped suet, and saleratus.

  2. Gradually add cornmeal until the mixture is stiff.

  3. Transfer the mixture to a cloth or pudding mold.

Cook

  1. Boil for several hours until cooked through.

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. Molasses + raisintop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,577 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Milk + raisintop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,155 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanoic acid (acides aroma).

  3. Milk + molassestop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked 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

Sour milk
Its acidity reacts with the saleratus, helping the pudding rise and giving a tangy note.
Cornmeal
Thickens the liquid into a stiff mixture that sets as it cooks.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark color and a deep flavor.
Suet
Adds fat, giving the pudding richness and a moist texture.
Saleratus
Releases gas when reacting with the acidic milk, helping the pudding lift.
Raisins
Add pockets of sweetness and chew throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Adding the cornmeal. The cornmeal must be added gradually until the mixture is stiff. Cornmeal absorbs liquid and thickens as it cooks, so adding too much at once can make the pudding dense and dry, while too little leaves it loose.

Swap the raisin

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits about as well
  3. Raisinthe original
  4. Applefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, molasses. 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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