Food
New England Indian Pudding (1978)
Here’s a classic, old-fashioned recipe for New England Indian Pudding from the Yankee archives. Made with cornmeal, molasses, ginger, and cinnamon, it’s a rich and comforting treat.
By Yankee Magazine|Aug 02 2022|
Coffee By Design | Portland, Maine
Photo Credit : Katherine Keenan
This was absolutely fabulous! It made the house smell like when I was a little girl, the texture was perfect and I ATE THE ENTIRE PAN!
Why did you pass on tomato soup cake? It is excellent and we used to have it all the time. Try it, you’ll like it!
This was SO good!!
The tomato soup cake IS delicious if you have a great recipe! Do try it, I agree!
My Mom made tomato soup cake and it was sooooooo wonderful. Warm spices that would perfume our house. Made a cool rainy/snowy day warm and comforting. Sometimes adding raisins and frosting with a cream cheese frosting . Great memories,
I am from Maine and my MOM made the best India Pudding.when I lived at home.
Elaine from Maine, now from Florida.
I am so glad I found this via Facebook. I will try it. Regarding the tomato soup cake — you have to try it. It is a rich, soft spice cake. Becky Johnson’s book, “Memories: Vintage Cake Recipes” has an excellent recipe for “Husband’s Cake” which is what they used to call tomato soup cake. http://www.amazon.com/dp/0615781764
I was wondering…. I made the pudding and was a bit confused about adding the milk and butter after baking for 30 minutes. Do you just pour it on top or mix it into the pudding? I ended up mixing it. It was delicious, but I wondered what the correct way was.
Thanks, Helen
Question, after cooking for 30 minutes,the recipe states to add the milk and butter. Is this mixed in? Details please.
I grew up with Indian Pudding as a cold season staple. It was also a great example of New England greatness coming from frugal ingredients.
Didn’t think anyone knew about tomato spoup cake I am from portland me my mom used to make with cream cheese frosting livein albany ny now made it for friends at work they thought I was crazy but loved it after tasting not so crazey about pudding but love homemade brown bread
Hi Helen. Good question. Many older recipes for Indian Pudding have this step, where more milk and/or butter are added to the pudding during baking. Often, it was not mixed it, so there would be a liquid, milky layer on top of the pudding. Many bakers today stir the milk into the pudding. You may get a slightly different texture or surface of the pudding, but we’ve found that both methods give you a tasty result as long as you bake it the correct length of time and at the right temperature. Thanks!
Thank you. This helps a lot. I prefer stirring it in, but I may try it the other way after Thanksgiving. Enjoy your Thanksgiving.
Just found your recipe for New England Indian Pudding. I have a recipe that was my great grandmothers. It calls for cornmeal and tapioca cooked with quart milk until thick. Then add white sugar molasses cinnamon salt and butter. Put in bean pot add 3 cups more milk and bake in slow oven until thick. My mom and grandmother made this in early evening and cooked it all night. This was always made before Thanksgiving and enjoyed till the New Year. I always thought this was a family recipe as it was called Grandmother Pearsons Indian Pudding. I belive Grandmother Pearson was my great grandmother.
Durgin Park restaurant in Boston still serves Indian Pudding and gives printout of their recipe.I always have it when I am there .
Is Durgin Park wait staff still as feisty as ever? Was there 20 years ago
Part of the “charm” of going there is being insulted by the wait staff. I wonder if they still put a dozen tablecloths on the tables in the morning and then just whip them off in between customers. Funniest thing ever!
Visited Durgin Park in the late 60’s when my folks visited from NY. I made their recipe for Indian Pudding and remember how I loved the way it turned out. I don’t have the recipe anymore but I remember it slow cooked for about 6 hours!
Someone directed to Durgin Park on my first business trip to Boston in the late 1970s and I saw Indian Cornbread Pudding on the menu. After I finished the lunch entre, I asked the waitress for “Indian Cornbread Pudding”. She turned ugly, snapped “Yahdanwannit”, spun on her heel, and stalked off. Eventually she came back and we repeated the act. Finally, we did a third try and she said it slightly slower: “Yah Dan’t Wannit!” slapped down the bill and again disappeared. My visit the next day I was going to try it again, but a thinning-hair man in his 50s, wearing a plaid 3-piece suit so loud it would light up a dark hotel corridor (um, I watched a lot of TV crime procedurals!) leaned over with an evil grin and in a conspiratorial stage whisper said to me and all nearby diners, “Son, in these parts, we call that ‘Moose S*it Pie!” and my appetite disappeared! Day 3, Durgin Park again, but I went after the lunch rush emptied out. No rude waitress, no snide businessman, I ordered and got the pudding. Ever since then, I’ve been a cornbread hound with occasional syrup or honey. Durgin Park and those two characters always snap into my mind when I have cornbread. Now, thanks to Yankee Magazine I have the original recipe with other readers’ variations. Life was and is good!
My aunts all made tomato soup cake when I was a kid. It’s pretty good, actually!
When I was young we live in Ma. My mom would make tomato soup cake everyone loved it, my Aunt Dot made the Indian Pudding and she made hard sauce for a topping. We moved to Az when I was 15 haven’t had Indian Pudding since then.
Tomato soup cake was excellent, possibly tomato soup gave it the ginger flavor, my mother was excellent cook , she got most of her recipes from Nova Scotia
Will you please give me the recipe for the Tomato Soup Cake, I’ve never had either and want to make both for Thanksgiving, ty
My mother made Bread Pudding, Indian Pudding and Tomato Soup Cake.. She even tried making my paternal g’mothers plum pudding but even though it tasted good, my dad said it just wasn’t the same… Today if I make any of the above, using old family recipes, folks always comment Ugh, Yuk, who would eat something like that… BUT, little do they know, recipes from the “old days” are the best and never properly measured, just a little of this and a little of that… LOL…
Yes a pinch of this and a dash of that, that’s what my Mum would always say when asked. Whatever she made always came out perfect.
I remember Indian Pudding as I grew up. I’M almost 82. My mother’s recipe is still in the book my husband bought me on our honeymoon. It has been reprinted in my place of work cookbook and RV Park cookbooks. It was served with cream, hardsauce or ice cream. We stir in the last milk.
Does any one have a recipe for hard sauce!!??? My mom used to make it, but from memory, so i dont have a written copy!!
I have the Indian pudding in the oven now…my husbands favorite. He grew up eating it at Red Coach Grill & White’s Corner in Framingham area. The Salem Cross Inn in Brookfield MA is the only restaurant we can find it now. I never had that growing up…however I LOVED tomato soup cake. He had never heard of tomato soup cake and thought it sounded horrible. We only grew up thirty minutes from each other! I cheat naming tomato soup cad these day, I use a spice cake mix with a can of tomato soup. The cream cheese frosting is a must. Surprisingly good…. It us quite a conversation piece!!!
Do you mean that you make the cake mix as usual and just add the soup in also OR that you use the cake mix and add the soup instead of the liquid to the cake mix? Would love to try this.
I am sitting waiting for this to be done. Much easier than my recipe from The Public House! I love Salem Cross too! Here’s a recipe my Mom used from her 1948 cookbook. HARD SAUCE. 1/4 cup butter 3/4 cup confectioner’s sugar 1/2 teaspoon vanilla 1 tablespoon HOT water. Rub butter with back of spoon until very creamy. Stir in sugar very gradually. Stir in vanilla also gradually. Stir in HOT water a few drops at a time as to not separate sauce. IF preferred, 1 tablespoon sherry, rum or bandy may be used instead of t he vanilla and water. Pile lightly in a serving dish and chill thoroughly. HAPPY THANKSGIVING!
I make a hard sauce with 1 stick of softened butter , 1 box of confectionary sugar and rum—mix all together with a mixer and store in the refrig—will keep for months. In the winter we add a good tablespoon of hard sauce a mug with hot milk and a jigger of rum.
Does Yankee have a cookbook with all their recipes over the years?
Thanks! Joyce
Joyce, if you go on line and type Yankee cookbook in the shearch. you will find some.
It’s been a while since making Indian Pudding; but what I recall from my recipe and recommend, would be to add some maple syrup maybe 2 generous tablespoons or maybe less depending on your tastes to the recipe. Also a bit of ground clove: 1/8 tsp. Both of these should be incorporated into the egg mixture before adding to the scalded milk/cornmeal mix. Play with all the spices and amounts in this recipe..I’m sure the original was more of using what was on hand & eyeballing the amounts as I’ve yet to see antique measuring spoons. Have fun and Enjoy!
Does someone have the recipe for tomato soup cake? Thank you.
Hi Sue! We’ve got one in the Yankee archives! Here’s the link: https://newengland.com/today/food/desserts/cakes-frostings/homemade-tomato-soup-cake/
Does Yankee publish a cook book for their best recipes?? Ie Indian Pudding and tomatoe cake?
For the Indian pudding recipe, it states to add milk and butter after cooking for 30 minutes. How much butter? How much milk?
Hi Tim. If you look at the list of ingredients, you’ll see them right at the end — 1/2 cup cold milk and 2 1/2 tablespoons of unsalted butter. Hope that helps! Happy baking!
We used to slow bake it in the oven, with the pudding pan inserted into a pan of hot water….
Some years ago there was a place in So Wellfleet, just off Rte 6 on Lecount Hollow Rd, called the Clam Shack. One of the big draws for me was their signature Indian Pudding….it was wonderful, the best I have had. Sadly they closed I guess the recipe is a family heirloom now.
Could you locate the receipt?
I was raised in Connecticut and my mother’s Indian Pudding recipe has more eggs than the recipe above and was seasoned with nutmeg and a bit of allspice. These days it’s a little culturally tone deaf to use the word “Indian” but my Navajo friends in Albuquerque, New Mexico didn’t mind a bit as they gobbled up the entire pan of pudding at Thanksgiving.
My mother and grandmother both made Indian Pudding in fact I have my grandmothers recipe Called Grandmother Pearson’s Indian Pudding however unlike all the recipes I have seen hers was made with cornmeal and tapioca then baked in a bean pot “ slowly liked baked beans” as the recipe states it was a given at Thanksgiving and I still make the same recipe today
Could you share your recipe for Indian pudding with the tapioca? My Mom made it that way but I lost her recipe. Thanks
By the way I’m originally from Portland Me and now live in Pa
I just made indian pudding for my mom on mothers day treat and it came out still watery. After following recipe what did I NOT do right followed the baking time. Please help kom still enjoyed it so I put it bake in oven to try and bake off liquids.
Jilmae22@gmail.com thanks
Alas, Durgin Park is now closed..Their Indian Pudding was almost as good as my grandmothers..Almost..
Is Durgan Park closed for good? I grew up in the Berkshires. I was introduced to Durgin Park as a child for Lobster and Indian Pudding dinner!!! Continued to drive across the state over the years to enjoy DP ambience and food! I live in Arizona now. Fortunately I have the Red Lions receipe for Indian Pudding! Would love to try your Grams❣️
Yes, it’s closed for good… I used to live in one of the founders summer homes, and it was a dark day for us when it closed the doors…You CAN get the cookbook online and try to duplicate at home…
Dave C–What’s the chance I’d come across your comment–one in how many millions+ ? Hope all is well with you.
Is there a history to this recipe? I love the history of cooking. Why the name Indian in it? How many years does it go back? Thanks
Because corn was introduced to settlers by Indians, oftentimes corn was simply called Indian, cornmeal in particular.
Cornmeal pudding- Indian pudding!
If you add walnuts to the indian pudding, what’s the quantity?
I really enjoyed reading all the comments I made tomato soup cake when I was in hi school (I’m 84 now)
Audrey N.,
I used to have a recipe file just for recipes that included unexpected ingredients– like your tomato soup cake. There were brownies with Dr. Pepper. Brownies with black beans. Candy made with potatoes. It was fun!
The Maine Diner in Wells, Maine used to make wonderful Indian pudding, served warm with vanilla ice cream. I don’t know if they still do, but yum!
The Maine Diner has the best Indian Pudding I have EVER had!
Had my first taste of Indian Pudding at a Howard Johnson restaurant when I was just a kid. Have made my own a few times and vanilla ice cream is the best topping ever.
I was wondering the same thing- couldn’t tell if you are supposed to stir after adding butter and milk. Would love to hear what others do
Ive read in other recipes that milk is added towards end and NOT stirred. Also, was at Maine diner 2 weeks ago, STILL serving Indian Pudding! I’m trying to figure out which recipe is the closest to make for Christmas.
Do you stir the pudding after adding the milk and butter or do you just pour it on top?
I have made the Red Lion Inn’s Indian Pudding from their cookbook many times and love it. Would love the Maine Diner’s recipe if anyone had it. I love that place!