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Dessert

Indian Meal Pudding

A sweet cornmeal pudding made with milk, molasses, butter, and salt, baked until set.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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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 Meal 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 pudding

  1. Boil 1 cup of cornmeal in 2 cups of milk until it thickens.

  2. Stir in 1 cup of molasses, 1 tablespoon of butter, and ¼ teaspoon of salt.

  3. Add 1 pint of cold milk and mix well.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into a baking dish and bake for 1 hour at 350°F (175°C).

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Milk + molassestop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,243 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  3. Molasses + buttertop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,123 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

Cornmeal
Thickens into a firm, spoonable base as it cooks in the milk.
Milk
Hydrates the cornmeal and adds moisture and creaminess to the custard.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark color, and a deep caramel-like flavor.
Butter
Adds fat for richer flavor and a softer, smoother texture.

The step that matters

Thickening the cornmeal in milk. Cornmeal must be stirred while it boils so it does not scorch or form lumps. Cooking it fully gelatinizes the starch, which gives the pudding its body before baking.

“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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