Skip to main content
Dessert

New England Indian Pudding

A thick milk and cornmeal pudding sweetened with molasses and sugar, baked slowly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Milk and cinnamon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,655 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

New England Indian Pudding

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 base

  1. Heat 1 quart of milk until warm.

  2. Slowly stir in the cornmeal.

  3. Stir gently until it thickens but does not boil.

  4. Remove from heat.

  5. Add the molasses, sugar, salt, and spice.

Add eggs and bake

  1. Beat the eggs well and stir them in.

  2. Pour the mixture into a pudding dish.

  3. Remove the mixing spoon.

  4. Add the second quart of milk without mixing.

  5. Bake in a 300°F (150°C) oven for 5 hours.

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

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Molasses + cinnamontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

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

Cornmeal
Swells with heat to thicken the milk and give the pudding its body.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, deep color, and a rich flavor to the pudding.
Eggs
Set when baked, giving the pudding a firm, custard-like structure.
Milk
Provides the liquid that thickens with cornmeal and sets into a tender custard.

The step that matters

Stir gently until thickened without boiling. Cornmeal starch swells as it heats and can clump or scorch on the bottom if the mixture boils or is left unstirred. Gentle stirring keeps it smooth and evenly thickened before the eggs are added.

“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.

You might also like

Molasses CookiesMolasses Cookies96 recipesMolasses CakeMolasses Cake90 recipesCinnamon RollsCinnamon Rolls71 recipesCinnamon CakeCinnamon Cake42 recipes