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Dessert

Rice and Tapioca Pudding

A baked pudding made with mixed rice, tapioca, milk, sugar, nutmeg, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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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 and Tapioca Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA gentle oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a gentle oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Butter a pie dish.

  2. Add 1 cup of mixed rice and tapioca to the dish.

  3. Sprinkle 2 tablespoons of powdered sugar and a little grated nutmeg over the mixture.

  4. Pour 3 pints of cold milk over the top.

  5. Place 1 tablespoon of butter on top of the milk.

Bake

  1. Bake in a gentle oven at 300°F (150°C) for 3 to 4 hours.

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. Nutmeg + milktop 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

Rice and tapioca
Starches that swell as they cook, thickening the milk into a soft, creamy pudding.
Milk
Provides the liquid that the grains absorb and the body of the pudding.
Powdered sugar
Adds sweetness and dissolves easily into the milk.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, softening the flavour and texture of the pudding.

The step that matters

Bake in a gentle oven. Slow, low heat lets the rice and tapioca soften and absorb the milk gradually without scorching or curdling the milk. A hot oven can burn the top and leave the grains firm.

Swap the nutmeg

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

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

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

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