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Dessert

Nantucket Corn Pudding

A baked corn pudding made with grated corn, milk, sugar, salt, soda crackers, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Nantucket Corn Pudding

Why it works: Corn and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,955 recipes. Both carry hexanal, which smells green, grassy. The science ↓

Nantucket Corn 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.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Grate or pound the corn finely and combine it with the milk, brown sugar, salt, and crushed soda crackers.

  3. Beat the eggs and mix them into the corn mixture.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a baking dish and bake for 3 hours.

  2. Serve with a batter made from slices of light bread or roll spread with orange marmalade.

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. Corn + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

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

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

  3. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  5. Corn + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,168 recipes

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

Milk and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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

Eggs
Set the custard as they cook, binding the corn and milk into a sliceable pudding.
Young corn
Provides the bulk, sweetness and main flavour of the pudding.
Milk
Supplies liquid that keeps the pudding moist and creates a tender custard.
Soda crackers
Absorb liquid and add body, helping the pudding hold its structure.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and a molasses note that deepens the flavour.

The step that matters

Baking for 3 hours at 350°F. Eggs set gradually as they heat, so the long, moderate bake lets the custard firm through without curdling or drying. Pulling it early leaves the centre loose and watery.

“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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