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Dessert

Baked Corn-meal Pudding, Without Eggs

A baked cornmeal pudding made with molasses, milk, ginger, suet or butter, and cold milk, served warm with hard sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Baked Corn-meal Pudding, Without Eggs

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 batter

  1. In a bowl, mix the cornmeal and molasses until well combined.

  2. Add the boiling milk, salt, and ginger, and mix thoroughly.

  3. Stir in the chopped suet or butter until incorporated.

  4. Let it stand until it thickens.

Bake and serve

  1. Butter a brown earthen pan and pour the mixture in.

  2. Before baking, pour the cold milk over the mixture without stirring.

  3. Bake in a preheated oven at 300°F (150°C) for three hours.

  4. Serve warm with hard sauce.

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

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

  2. Molasses + gingertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Milk + gingertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,519 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  4. Molasses + milktop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,243 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  5. Ginger + buttertop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,152 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

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

What each ingredient does

Yellow cornmeal
Forms the thick body of the pudding as it bakes and sets.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark color, and a deep flavor that browns during baking.
Milk
Hydrates the cornmeal and gives the pudding its custardy, moist texture.
Suet or butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender, moist crumb.

The step that matters

Pour the cold milk over without stirring. Cornmeal swells as it absorbs liquid, so leaving the cold milk on top keeps it as a separate layer that softens during the long bake, rather than mixing it in and thinning the batter before it sets.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Clovefits about as well
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against molasses, milk, butter. 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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