Skip to main content
Dessert

Rice Pudding

A custard-like pudding made with Carolina rice, milk, butter, eggs, sugar, and nutmeg, baked until set.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Rice Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the rice

  1. Wash the rice in one or two waters, then drain and dry it on a cloth.

Cook the rice

  1. Put the rice into a saucepan with the cold milk and butter.

  2. Place the saucepan over moderate heat and simmer gently until the rice is tender.

Bake and serve

  1. Add the whipped eggs, sugar, and nutmeg to the rice mixture.

  2. Pour into a buttered pudding dish and bake in a moderate oven (350°F / 175°C) until set and nicely colored.

  3. Serve hot.

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

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

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

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

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

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

  4. Milk + nutmegtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,685 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Rice + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,645 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Carolina rice
Provides the starchy body that thickens the milk into a creamy pudding as it cooks.
Eggs
Set when baked, giving the pudding its firm, custard-like structure.
Milk
Forms the creamy base that the rice simmers in and softens within.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, tender mouthfeel to the pudding.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the top brown during baking.

The step that matters

Simmer the rice gently until tender. High heat can scorch the milk on the pan bottom and cook the rice unevenly. Gentle simmering lets the starch release slowly, so the rice softens fully and the milk thickens without catching.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Turmericfits less well
  4. Gingerfits less well

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

You might also like

Rice CakeRice Cake120 recipesRice CreamRice Cream43 recipesRice JellyRice Jelly42 recipesRice Batter CakesRice Batter Cakes11 recipes