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Dessert

Poor Man's Indian Pudding

A sweet milk pudding flavored with molasses, ginger, and Indian meal.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Molasses and ginger are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,116 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Poor Man's Indian 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. Scald the sweet milk in a saucepan.

  2. Stir in the molasses, salt, and ginger.

  3. Gradually mix in the Indian meal until well combined.

  4. Pour the mixture into a baking dish.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 2 to 3 hours.

  2. Serve warm with butter or sugar.

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. Molasses + gingertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Milk + gingertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,519 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

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

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

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

What each ingredient does

Sweet milk
Forms the liquid base that the cornmeal thickens into a soft pudding.
Molasses
Adds deep sweetness and a dark color while contributing moisture to the pudding.
Indian meal
Cornmeal that thickens the milk and gives the pudding its body as it bakes.

The step that matters

Gradually mix in the Indian meal. Adding cornmeal slowly while stirring helps it disperse evenly, preventing lumps and a grainy texture in the finished pudding.

Swap the ginger

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, molasses. 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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