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Dessert

Rice Custard

A baked rice custard made with milk, eggs, sugar, and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Rice Custard

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the rice custard

  1. Combine the rice, milk, and salt in a pot.

  2. Steam the mixture for 1 hour or until the rice is soft.

  3. Beat the egg yolks with the sugar in a bowl.

  4. Stir the yolk mixture into the rice just before removing it from heat, mixing thoroughly without boiling.

  5. Add vanilla extract to the rice mixture.

Top and bake

  1. Beat the egg whites to stiff peaks, adding sugar to taste.

  2. Transfer the rice mixture to a pudding dish and spread the beaten egg whites on top.

  3. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) until the top is slightly browned.

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 + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

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

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

  3. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Rice + vanillatop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,352 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Rice
Softens into a thick base that gives the custard its body.
Milk
Provides the liquid that cooks with the rice into a creamy custard.
Egg yolks
Thicken the custard as they set and add richness.
Egg whites
Whipped into stiff peaks, they form a light topping that browns in the oven.
White sugar
Sweetens the custard and helps the egg whites hold their peaks.

The step that matters

Stirring the yolks into the rice. If the mixture boils after the egg yolks go in, the yolks can scramble and curdle, leaving a grainy custard. Stirring thoroughly and keeping the heat off the boil lets the yolks thicken it smoothly.

“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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