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Dessert

To Make a Common Rice-Pudding

A baked 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 thoroughly.

  2. Combine the rice with the milk in a large pot.

Bake

  1. Mix in the butter, cinnamon, nutmeg, beaten egg, salt, and sugar.

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

Finish and serve

  1. Remove from the oven and take off the top.

  2. Serve the pudding in breakfast cups, turning them out onto a 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 slowly in the milk.
Milk
Provides the liquid that the rice absorbs and that sets into a creamy base.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, giving the pudding a smoother mouthfeel.
Egg
Helps the pudding set and gives it a firmer, custard-like structure.

The step that matters

Baking time and temperature. Baking at 400°F for 1.5 hours lets the egg set and the rice soften in the milk. Too little time leaves the centre loose, while too much can dry the pudding out.

“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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