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Dessert

Baked Indian Pudding

A baked pudding made from milk, cornmeal, molasses, allspice, sea salt, rich milk, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Baked Indian Pudding

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 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. Scald the milk in a saucepan.

  2. Stir in enough cornmeal to create a batter.

  3. Season with molasses, allspice, and coarse sea salt to taste.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into a tin basin.

  2. Pour ½ cup of rich milk on top.

  3. Cut a few pieces of butter and place them around the mixture.

  4. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven for two 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.

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

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

  2. Molasses + allspicetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,508 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  4. Milk + allspicetop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,947 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Allspice + buttertop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,325 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Cornmeal
Thickens the scalded milk into a batter that sets as it bakes.
Molasses
Adds sweetness and deep color along with its characteristic flavor.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the cornmeal thickens and bakes into a custard.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and helps keep the top moist as it bakes.

Swap the allspice

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Clovefits better
  4. Allspicethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, molasses, 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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