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Dessert

Rice Pudding Without Eggs

A baked rice pudding made with milk, rice, sugar, and flavoring, served warm or chilled.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Rice Pudding Without Eggs

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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a large baking dish, combine the milk, rice, sugar, and flavoring.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake for about 1 hour, stirring occasionally, until the pudding is quite brown.

  2. Serve warm or chilled.

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. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Milk + ricetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,374 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Rice + vanillatop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,352 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Milk
Liquid that slowly cooks around the rice, giving the pudding its creamy body and browning.
Rice
Starch that softens and thickens as it absorbs the milk during baking.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the surface brown in the oven.

The step that matters

Stirring occasionally while baking. Milk and sugar can scorch or form a skin on the bottom and edges of the dish. Stirring keeps the rice and liquid evenly heated so the pudding thickens and browns without burning.

“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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