Name: Indian Pudding
Ingredients: 1 pint milk; ½ cup cornmeal; ⅔ cup molasses; 1 pint cold milk; 1 tablespoon butter; ¼ teaspoon salt

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 ↓

Indian Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Scald 1 pint of milk in a saucepan.
Stir in ½ cup of cornmeal and cook until thickened.
Add ⅔ cup of molasses, 1 pint of cold milk, 1 tablespoon of butter, and ¼ teaspoon of salt.
Mix well and pour into a baking dish.

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.

Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Milk + molassestop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together7,243 recipes

Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).
Molasses + buttertop 30% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together8,123 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).