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Dessert

Indian Baked Pudding

A baked pudding made from Indian meal, wheat flour, eggs, butter, and milk, optionally with currants or raisins.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and raisin match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Indian Baked Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Warm the butter near the fire and add it to the Indian meal along with salt and enough milk to form a batter.

  2. Separate the eggs, beating the yolks until light and adding them to the batter.

  3. Gently fold in the egg whites alternately with the flour without beating after adding the whites.

  4. If desired, stir in floured currants and raisins before baking.

Bake and serve

  1. Butter a pan, pour in the batter, and bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until set.

  2. Serve with any sweet 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. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Wheat + milktop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  3. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  4. Currant + raisintop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

  5. Wheat + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,373 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Indian meal
Cornmeal forms the body of the pudding and sets as it bakes.
Eggs
Yolks enrich the batter and whites add lift and a lighter, set structure.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving a tender crumb and flavor.
Wheat flour
Adds some gluten structure that helps the pudding hold together when set.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Whites trap air that gives lift; beating after they are added knocks that air out and makes the pudding dense. Folding gently, alternating with the flour, keeps the batter light.

Swap the currant

The recipe marks currant as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (wheat, flour, butter, egg, milk, raisin):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against wheat, flour, butter, egg, milk, raisin. 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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