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Dessert

Plain Rice Pudding

A baked rice pudding with butter, sugar, nutmeg, raisins, currants, citron, eggs, milk, cream, and wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By F. L. Gillette and Hugo Ziemann · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 17 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and raisin are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,377 recipes. Both carry alpha-terpineol, which smells lilac, floral. The science ↓

Plain Rice Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the rice

  1. Pick over, wash and boil a teacupful of rice. When soft, drain off the water.

  2. While warm, add a tablespoonful of cold butter.

  3. When cool, mix in a cupful of sugar, a teaspoonful of grated nutmeg, and one of ground cinnamon.

  4. Beat up four eggs very light, separating whites and yolks; add them to the rice.

  5. Stir in a quart of sweet milk gradually.

  6. If you have cold cooked rice, first soak it in the milk and proceed as above.

Bake and serve

  1. Butter a pudding-dish, turn in the mixture, and bake one hour in a moderate oven.

  2. Serve warm, with sweet wine sauce.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

528Calories
16 gProtein
31 gFat
44 gCarbs

Counts 9 of 10 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 9 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Milk1 cup (244ml) whole149
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Grape1/2 cup (76g)62
Cream1 tbsp (15ml) heavy51
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Wine2 tbsp cooking wine (30ml)25
Nutmeg1 tsp ground (2.2g)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 F. L. Gillette and Hugo Ziemann. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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. Nutmeg + raisintop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  5. Raisin + curranttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Rice (in the method)
Forms the body of the pudding, giving it bulk and a soft, starchy texture.
Eggs
Set during baking to bind the pudding and give it a rich, custard-like structure.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smoother, more tender crumb.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the pudding brown lightly in the oven.
Milk
Provides liquid that moistens the rice and sets with the eggs into a custard.
Raisins
Add sweetness and chewy pockets of fruit throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Adding the eggs to the rice. Eggs should be beaten light and folded in evenly; if they are added to rice that is too hot, they can scramble, and uneven mixing leaves streaks of set egg instead of a smooth custard.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sugar, nutmeg, cream, milk, raisin, egg):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, nutmeg, cream, milk, raisin, egg. 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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