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Dessert

Rice Pudding

A custard-like dessert made from boiled rice, milk, sugar, eggs, lemon, and optional raisins, baked slowly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Sterrett, Laura C · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Rice and corn match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 933 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Rice Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the rice custard

  1. Boil a cup of rice in a custard kettle with a pint of water seasoned with salt until dry.

  2. Add a pint of milk in which a little corn starch has been dissolved, and boil again.

  3. Add the yolks of two eggs beaten with half a cup of sugar, stir well together.

  4. Add the juice and grated rind of one lemon.

  5. After boiling the rice with the milk, eggs and sugar, add a lump of butter.

  6. Add a cup of raisins just before baking, if desired.

Layer and bake

  1. Place a layer of the rice about an inch thick in a buttered dish sprinkled with bread crumbs.

  2. Add a layer of peaches (either fresh or canned).

  3. Repeat until the dish is full, leaving rice for the last layer.

  4. Place the mixture in a dish and bake slowly in the oven.

  5. Bake slowly for half an hour.

  6. When done, spread over the top the whites beaten with two tablespoons sugar, and brown in oven.

  7. When done, cover with the beaten whites, as above.

Make the small rice pudding and serve

  1. Take half a tea-cup best rice, put it in a small pie dish with three tablespoons moist sugar.

  2. Fill the dish with milk and water in equal proportions.

  3. Bake very slowly.

  4. Bake half an hour.

  5. Serve with hard sauce.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

1011Calories
33 gProtein
15 gFat
185 gCarbs

Counts 8 of 9 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 8 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Rice1 cup cooked (158g) white206
Milk1 cup (244ml) whole149
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Grape1/2 cup (76g)62
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Lemonjuice of 1 lemon (48ml)12
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
Waternot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Sterrett, Laura C. 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. See the original page.

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 + corntop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together933 recipes

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

  2. Rice + teatop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together197 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

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

  4. Lemon + teatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together610 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  5. Milk + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

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 and absorbs the milk as it cooks.
Eggs
Enriches the custard and helps it set when baked.
Milk
Provides the liquid that cooks the rice into a creamy custard.
Corn starch
Thickens the milk so the custard becomes creamy rather than watery.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and helps the meringue topping brown.

The step that matters

Boil the rice until dry before adding the milk. Rice that still holds free water will dilute the custard and keep it loose, so it should be cooked down before the milk goes in.

Swap the raisin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, rice, corn, sugar, egg, lemon, tea):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Orangefits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Raisinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, rice, corn, sugar, egg, lemon, tea. 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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