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Dessert

Baked Indian Pudding

A baked pudding made with milk, Indian meal, eggs, sugar, molasses, salt, and cinnamon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Baked Indian Pudding

Why it works: Milk and cinnamon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,655 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Baked Indian Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the base

  1. Boil 1 pint of milk.

  2. Stir in ½ cup of Indian meal.

  3. Cool the mixture.

Bake

  1. Add the remaining milk, 2 beaten eggs, ⅓ cup sugar, ⅓ cup molasses, ¼ teaspoon salt, and 1 teaspoon cinnamon.

  2. Pour the mixture into a baking dish.

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

  4. After 1 hour of baking, add ⅓ cup cold milk if you want it jellied.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Molasses + cinnamontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

Indian meal
Cornmeal thickens the milk into a stiff, pudding-like body as it cooks.
Eggs
Eggs set during baking, giving the pudding structure and a custard-like firmness.
Molasses
Molasses adds deep sweetness, dark color, and a caramel-like flavor.
Milk
Milk provides the liquid that the cornmeal thickens and the eggs set.
Sugar
Sugar adds sweetness and helps browning on the baked surface.

The step that matters

Cool the mixture before adding the eggs. Adding beaten eggs to very hot cornmeal mixture can scramble them. Cooling first lets the eggs blend smoothly and set evenly into a uniform custard.

“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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