I had never heard of Indian Pudding until I flipped through the pages of my mother’s Betty Crocker cookbook. I was in the pudding section as I was making Rice Pudding, and happened upon this. It was intriguing and even as it was in the oven, for 3 hours I must add, I still had no idea what to expect. Cornmeal and molasses, hmmm. Come to find out it tasted like brown bread, which was interesting.
I’m not entirely sure this recipe actually worked, but since I am determined to make as many recipes as I can from my mom’s old cookbook I decided to write the blog anyway. Steph and Betty!
As I mentioned the recipe called for a 3 hour baking time. However, it did not mention how to know if the pudding was done. After the 3 hours I thought how could it not be done, right? Well, I’m not really sure it actually was done as it was not set in the center even after sitting for an hour. If I ever am to make this again I would let it cook longer until the pudding seemed set. It did set in the refrigerator and was much better the next day. The only I picture I took was the night of, however, and you can see how loose it was.
Ingredients:
4 cups of milk
2/3 cup molasses
2/3 cup yellow cornmeal
1/3 cup sugar
1 tsp salt
3/4 tsp cinnamon
3/4 tsp nutmeg
1/4 cup butter
Heat oven to 300 degrees. Grease a 2 quart casserole dish.
In a saucepan combine 3 cups of the milk and molasses and heat over low/medium heat.
In a small mixing bowl combine cornmeal, sugar, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg.

Gradually stir into hot milk mixture. Add butter.

Cook over low heat, stirring constantly, for about 10 minutes until thickened.

It didn’t seem like it was going to thicken, but it did.
Pour into the casserole.
Pour the remaining 1 cup of milk on top of pudding; do not stir. Bake for 3 hours or until set.

Serve warm with vanilla ice cream or whipped cream.