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Dessert

To Make a Common Rice Pudding

Rice pudding made with rice, milk, butter, cinnamon, nutmeg, egg, salt, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

To Make a Common Rice Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Wash the rice.

  2. Combine rice with milk and butter in a pot.

  3. Mix in cinnamon, nutmeg, beaten egg, salt, and sugar.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 1.5 hours.

  2. Remove the top.

  3. Place pudding in breakfast cups.

  4. Turn them out onto a hot dish.

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

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

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

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

  5. Rice + nutmegtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Rice
Forms the body of the pudding as it cooks and softens in the milk.
Milk
Provides the liquid that the rice absorbs, creating a creamy, custard-like texture.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving the pudding a smoother mouthfeel.
Egg
Helps set the pudding and adds structure as it bakes.
Ground cinnamon
Contributes warm, aromatic flavour to the pudding.

The step that matters

Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 1.5 hours. Baking long enough lets the rice soften fully and the egg set, so the pudding holds together. Too short a bake leaves it loose and watery in the centre.

“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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