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Dessert

The Deacon's Apple Indian Pudding

A baked pudding made with scalded milk, Indian meal, molasses, salt, and sliced apples.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and apple are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,104 recipes. Both carry 4-heptenal, which smells creamy, biscuit. The science ↓

The Deacon's Apple 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.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).

Make the pudding

  1. In a bowl, combine scalded milk, Indian meal, molasses, and salt, and stir until well mixed.

  2. Fold in the sliced apples.

  3. Pour the mixture into a baking dish.

Bake

  1. Bake for 3 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 + appletop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,104 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

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

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  3. Molasses + appletop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together970 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Indian meal
Cornmeal that thickens the milk and gives the pudding its body as it bakes.
Milk
Liquid that hydrates the cornmeal and, with its proteins, helps the pudding set creamy.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark color, and a deep caramel-like flavor during the long bake.
Sweet apples
Add moisture and fruity flavor, softening as they bake into the pudding.

The step that matters

Bake for 3 hours at a low temperature. Cornmeal needs a long, gentle bake to fully hydrate and set into a custard-like texture. Too high a heat can dry the top or scorch the molasses before the center sets.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, molasses. 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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