Skip to main content
Dessert

Indian Pudding

A sweet cornmeal pudding made with milk, water, sugar, molasses, eggs, and spices, baked or steamed.

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

Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Indian Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the cornmeal base

  1. Heat the sweet milk in a double boiler until it reaches the scalding point.

  2. Mix the cornmeal with the cold water.

  3. Add the cornmeal mixture to the milk.

  4. Stir the mixture until it thickens.

  5. Remove the mixture from heat.

Finish the batter

  1. Add the sugar and sorghum molasses.

  2. Cool the mixture until lukewarm.

  3. Add the well-beaten eggs, salt, cinnamon, ginger, and nutmeg.

  4. Mix all ingredients together.

  5. Pour the mixture into a greased baking dish.

Bake or steam

  1. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for about 2 hours.

  2. If baking, pour a few tablespoons of milk over the top if it becomes too dry.

  3. Steam for 3 hours.

  4. If steaming, keep covered during the entire steaming process.

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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cinnamon + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Sorghum + cinnamontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together45 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

  4. Ginger + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Sorghum + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together33 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

What each ingredient does

Cornmeal
Thickens the milk into a soft, spoonable pudding base as it cooks.
Eggs
Set the custard, adding structure and richness to the pudding.
Sorghum molasses
Adds sweetness and deep, earthy flavor with a little moisture.
Sweet milk
Forms the liquid base that the cornmeal thickens and the eggs set.

The step that matters

Cool the mixture until lukewarm before adding the eggs. Adding beaten eggs to very hot cornmeal mixture can scramble them, leaving lumps and an uneven texture. Cooling first lets the eggs blend smoothly and set evenly in the oven.

Swap the ginger

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

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

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

Baked 36Boiled 26Steamed 12Apple 8New England 4Plain 4 See all 344 →

You might also like

Ginger CookiesGinger Cookies213 recipesMolasses CookiesMolasses Cookies96 recipesGinger CakeGinger Cake93 recipesMolasses CakeMolasses Cake90 recipes