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Plain Family Rice Pudding, Baked

A baked rice pudding made with milk, rice, sugar, lemon peel, cinnamon, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Rice and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,137 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Plain Family Rice Pudding, Baked

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).

  2. In a pie dish, combine the washed and picked rice with milk, sugar, lemon peel, cinnamon, and butter.

Bake

  1. Bake for 3 to 4 hours until set.

  2. Use fresh milk to prevent curdling.

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Lemon + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

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

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

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

  5. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Rice
Its starch swells and softens during the long bake, thickening the milk and giving the pudding body.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that thickens and sets into a creamy, custard-like texture as it bakes.
Moist sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and its molasses notes deepen the flavor and browning.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth mouthfeel as it melts into the pudding.
Lemon peel
Adds bright aromatic oil that lifts the sweet, creamy flavor.

The step that matters

Bake for 3 to 4 hours until set. Slow baking at low heat lets the rice starch swell and the milk thicken gradually without boiling over or curdling. Judging the set by eye, rather than by time alone, prevents a runny or overcooked pudding.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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