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Dessert

Ground Rice Pudding

A pudding made from ground rice, milk, butter, almonds, eggs, brandy, and spices, baked in a puff pastry rim.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Rice and almond match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,456 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Ground Rice Pudding

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.

Make the base

  1. Combine the ground rice and milk in a saucepan over medium heat, stirring with a whisk until thickened.

Add the flavourings

  1. Add the butter, sifted sugar, pounded almonds, beaten eggs, brandy, grated lemon, and spices.

  2. If desired, mix in currants.

Bake

  1. Place a rim of puff pastry on a baking dish and pour the pudding mixture into it.

  2. Bake at 350°F (175°C) until set.

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. Rice + almondtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,456 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

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

  3. Rice + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,374 recipes

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

  4. Almond + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Butter + almondtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Ground rice
Thickens the milk as it cooks, giving the pudding its body.
Eggs
Set when baked, giving the pudding a firm, custard-like structure.
Milk
Provides the liquid base that the rice thickens and the eggs set.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, tender texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and adds to its browning at the surface.
Almonds
Contribute nutty aroma and fat, adding depth of flavour and richness.

The step that matters

Thickening the milk and ground rice. Stirring constantly over medium heat keeps the ground rice from settling and scorching on the pan base, while its starch gelatinises and thickens the milk evenly. Lumps or scorching at this stage cannot be fully corrected later.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rice, milk, butter, sugar, almond, egg, brandy):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, milk, butter, sugar, almond, egg, brandy. 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.

More rice pudding recipes

Baked 88Apple 84with Meringue 40Boiled 38French 30Lemon 29 See all 1,220 →

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