Skip to main content
Dessert

Rice Pudding Without Eggs

Eggless rice pudding made with milk, rice, sugar, butter, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt, baked until creamy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Rice Pudding Without Eggs

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

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

  2. In a well-buttered deep pudding dish, combine the milk, rice, sugar, butter, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt.

  3. Stir the mixture once or twice until it begins to cook.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in the oven for about 2 hours until it reaches a creamy consistency.

  2. Serve cold.

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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Rice + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,137 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Walnut + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,230 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Walnut + cinnamontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,147 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

What each ingredient does

Milk
Provides the liquid that cooks with the rice and sets into a creamy custard-like base.
Rice
Absorbs liquid and softens during baking, giving the pudding its body and texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps give the pudding a richer flavour and browning at the surface.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and smoothness, and keeps the dish from sticking when greased.

The step that matters

Stir once or twice at the start. Stirring early helps distribute the rice and sugar evenly as the milk heats. Stirring too often during baking can break up the forming surface and disturb the slow thickening that gives the pudding its creamy texture.

Swap the walnut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, rice, sugar, butter, cinnamon, nutmeg):

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits about as well
  3. Pistachiofits about as well
  4. Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, rice, sugar, butter, cinnamon, nutmeg. 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.

You might also like

Rice CakeRice Cake120 recipesCinnamon RollsCinnamon Rolls71 recipesRice CreamRice Cream43 recipesCinnamon CakeCinnamon Cake42 recipes