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Dessert

Rice Pudding Without Eggs

A baked rice pudding made with milk, rice, sugar, butter, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt, served cold.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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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).

Make the pudding

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

  2. 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

Rice
Starch that thickens as it cooks, giving the pudding its body.
Milk
Liquid that cooks with the rice and provides creaminess.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps give the pudding its tender, soft texture.
Butter
Adds fat, contributing richness and a smooth mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Stir the mixture once or twice until it begins to cook. Rice settles to the bottom of the dish and can scorch or cook unevenly, so light early stirring helps distribute the grains through the milk before the long bake.

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.

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