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Dessert

Indian Pudding

A sweet custard made with milk, cornmeal, butter, eggs, spices, and raisins, baked until set.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Indian 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.

Make the custard base

  1. Scald 1 pint of milk in a saucepan.

  2. Stir in 6 tablespoons of cornmeal and boil for 1 minute while stirring.

  3. Remove from heat and add a large piece of butter, sugar to taste, and a little molasses for color and flavor.

  4. Let the mixture cool slightly, then stir in 1 pint of cold milk and 2 beaten eggs.

  5. Add ¼ teaspoon salt, ½ teaspoon cinnamon, ¼ teaspoon nutmeg, and raisins.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into a baking dish and bake at 350°F (175°C) for about 1 hour.

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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cinnamon + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  3. Nutmeg + raisintop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Cornmeal
Thickens the milk as it boils, giving the pudding its body and soft, spoonable structure.
Eggs
Set during baking to bind the pudding and give it a tender, custard-like texture.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the cornmeal thickens and the eggs set into a custard.
Molasses
Adds deep color and a caramel-like sweetness and flavor to the pudding.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, contributing a smoother mouthfeel and flavor.

The step that matters

Boiling the cornmeal in the milk. Cornmeal must be stirred constantly while it boils, because it can settle and scorch on the bottom of the pan. Stirring also helps the starches hydrate evenly so the mixture thickens smoothly rather than becoming lumpy.

Swap the raisin

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

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

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