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Dessert

Boiled Indian Pudding

A boiled pudding made from milk, Indian meal, suet, eggs, molasses, and cinnamon.

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

Boiled 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 batter

  1. Heat the milk in a pot until scalding.

  2. Gradually beat in the Indian meal mixed with salt until smooth.

  3. Add the powdered suet and remove from heat; let cool.

  4. Once cool, beat in the whipped eggs, molasses, and cinnamon for five minutes.

Steam and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a greased pudding mold with a tight-fitting lid.

  2. Boil for five hours.

  3. Turn out onto a heated platter and bake in the oven at 350°F (175°C) for five minutes before serving.

  4. Serve with a hard or liquid 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 + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

  4. Milk + molassestop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,243 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  5. Egg + cinnamontop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19,058 recipes

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

Egg and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 19,058 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

Indian meal
Cornmeal thickens the milk into a firm, sliceable pudding as it cooks.
Eggs
Whipped eggs set during cooking, adding structure and richness to the pudding.
Molasses
Adds sweetness and deep flavor, and darkens the pudding's color.
Powdered suet
Adds fat that enriches the texture and keeps the pudding moist.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the cornmeal thickens into a custard-like batter.

The step that matters

Beat in the whipped eggs after the mixture cools. Adding eggs to very hot cornmeal can scramble them and create lumps. Cooling first lets the eggs blend smoothly and set evenly in the pudding.

“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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