Indian Pudding Recipe
Filed under Dessert, Thanksgiving
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My first encounter with Indian Pudding was over 20 years ago at Durgin Park, a landmark restaurant in Faneuil Hall, Boston, famous for its home-style Yankee cooking and, at the time, its cranky, octogenarian waitresses. Few desserts look so completely unappetizing yet taste so incredibly good. One bite of this lumpy, brown mush, with a dab of vanilla ice cream, and I was sold. Scraped every last bit from the bowl. Why indian pudding isn't more widely known I have no idea; it's one of my favorite desserts of all time, and a traditional New England Thanksgiving classic. Indian pudding is a baked custard with milk, butter, molasses, eggs, spices, and cornmeal. The name is likely derived from the cornmeal, known as indian meal way back when. Here are two recipes for indian pudding, one, a tried-and-true recipe adapted from An Olde Concord Christmas, a long out-of-print book from the Concord Museum, and the other, a recipe for the Durgin Park version that I'm including more for the sake of comparison than anything else. My experience is that the Durgin Park recipe is easier to mess-up, so I would recommend sticking with the Concord museum recipe.
Indian Pudding Recipe
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Ingredients
Concord Museum version
- 6 cups of milk
- 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter
- 1/2 cup yellow cornmeal
- 1/4 cup flour
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 cup molasses
- 3 eggs, beaten
- 1/3 cup of granulated sugar
- 1 teaspoon of cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon of nutmeg
- 1 cup golden raisins (optional)
- Whipped cream or vanilla ice cream
Method
1 Scald the milk and butter in a large double boiler. Or heat the milk and butter for 5 or 6 minutes on high heat in the microwave, until it is boiling, then transfer it to a pot on the stove. Keep hot on medium heat.
2 Preheat oven to 250°F.
3 In a separate bowl, mix cornmeal, flour, and salt; stir in molasses. Thin the mixture with about 1/2 cup of scalded milk, a few tablespoons at a time, then gradually add the mixture back to the large pot of scalded milk. Cook, stirring until thickened.
4 Temper the eggs by slowly adding a half cup of the hot milk cornmeal mixture to the beaten eggs, whisking constantly. Add the egg mixture back in with the hot milk cornmeal mixture, stir to combine. Stir in the sugar and spices, until smooth. At this point, if the mixture is clumpy, you can run it through a blender to smooth it out. Stir in the raisins (optional). Pour into a 2 1/2 quart shallow casserole dish. Bake for 2 hours at 250°F.
5 Allow the pudding to cool about an hour to be at its best. It should be reheated to warm temperature if it has been chilled. Serve with whipped cream or vanilla ice cream.
Serves 8-10.
Durgin Park Indian Pudding*
- Vegetable shortening
- 1 cup yellow cornmeal
- 1/2 cup dark molasses
- 1/4 cup sugar
- 1/4 cup butter
- 1/8 teaspoon baking soda
- Pinch of salt
- 2 eggs, lightly beaten
- 6 cups whole milk
1 Set oven at 275°F. Have on hand a shallow 2 1/2 quart baking dish. Use shortening to grease it. Set aside.
2 In a large saucepan, combine the cornmeal, molasses, sugar, butter, baking soda, and salt. Add the eggs and stir in 3 cups of milk.
3 Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon, until the mixture thickens a little but does not come to a boil. (If the mixture boils, even for a second, it will be a curdled mess and you'll have to throw the whole thing out.) Remove from the heat and slowly whisk in the remaining 3 cups of milk. Pour the batter into the baking dish and transfer it to the oven. Bake the pudding for 2 to 2 1/2 hours or until a crust forms on top.
Serve with vanilla ice cream or whipped cream.
Serves 8 to 10.
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Posted by Elise on Nov 14, 2007 and indexed Pudding
Has anyone ever seen cans of Indian pudding? I used to buy it about 25 years ago....and we heated it a double boiler. Does anyone know where I might find them now?