Name: Baked Indian Pudding
Ingredients: 1 quart scalding hot milk; 1 cup Indian meal; ½ cup molasses; 1 piece of butter (size of an egg); 1 teaspoon salt; 1 teaspoon ginger; 1 tablespoon cinnamon; 1 egg

Why it works: Ginger and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,380 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. 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

Wet the Indian meal with cold water.
Pour the boiling milk over the meal to scald it.
Let the mixture cool.
Add the egg.

Bake

Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) for 1.5 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.

Ginger + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together6,380 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,655 recipes

Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).
Molasses + cinnamontop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together4,928 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Molasses + gingertop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together4,116 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Indian meal: Cornmeal swells in the hot milk and thickens the pudding.
Milk: Scalded milk softens the meal and forms the bulk of the liquid.
Molasses: Adds sweetness, dark color and a deep flavor.
Egg: Sets during baking to bind the pudding.
Butter: Adds fat for richness and a softer texture.

The step that matters

Cool the mixture before adding the egg. Adding the egg to a very hot mixture can scramble it, so letting it cool first keeps the pudding smooth.

Swap the ginger

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

Nutmegfits better
Clovefits better
Allspicefits about as well
Gingerthe original

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