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Dessert

Indian Pudding

A sweet, thick pudding made from milk, cornmeal, molasses, sugar, spices, egg, and baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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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 ↓

Indian Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the cornmeal base

  1. Boil 1 pint of milk.

  2. Mix ½ pint of corn meal with ½ pint of cold milk.

  3. Stir the corn meal mixture into the hot milk.

  4. When scalded, remove from heat.

Bake

  1. Add ⅓ cup of molasses, 2 tablespoons of brown sugar, ½ teaspoon of salt, 1 teaspoon of ginger, a little cinnamon, 1 beaten egg, and 1 pint of cold milk.

  2. Turn the mixture into an earthen pudding dish and 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. Ginger + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Corn + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together647 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Milk + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Corn meal
Its starch thickens as it heats, giving the pudding its body.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the cornmeal thickens into a pudding.
Egg
Sets during baking, binding the pudding into a soft custard-like texture.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark color and a rich, slightly bitter flavor.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and a deeper caramel-like flavor.

The step that matters

Stir the corn meal mixture into the hot milk. Cornmeal mixed with cold milk first disperses evenly, so it thickens smoothly instead of forming lumps when it meets the hot milk. Stop heating once the milk is scalded, so the starch thickens without scorching.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Gingerthe original
  3. Cardamomfits about as well
  4. Clovefits about as well

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

More indian pudding recipes

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