Name: Rice Pudding, Baked, Small
Ingredients: ¼ pound rice; 1 pint milk; 3 eggs, well beaten; Candied peel, cut into thin shreds; Butter, for greasing; Cream, custard, or wine sauce, for serving

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, Baked, Small

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the rice

Boil the rice in a little more than 1 pint of milk, sweetened and flavored with almonds, until soft and thick.
Pour the rice mixture into a bowl and mix in the beaten eggs.

Fill and bake

Butter small cups thickly and cover the inside with candied peel.
Half fill the cups with the rice mixture, being careful not to displace the peel.
Bake the puddings in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for about 40 minutes.

Serve

Once baked, turn them out and serve on a neatly folded napkin with cream, custard, or wine sauce.

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.

Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Rice + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,374 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Rice + buttertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together9,645 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together118,967 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Rice: Cooked in milk until soft and thick, it forms the body of the pudding.
Milk: Cooks with the rice to create a creamy, tender base for the pudding.
Eggs: Beaten eggs set during baking, binding the rice mixture into a firm pudding.

The step that matters

Filling the cups without displacing the peel. Pouring the rice mixture too forcefully or overfilling can shift the candied peel lining, leaving the design uneven once the puddings are turned out. Filling only halfway leaves room for the mixture to rise and set in the oven.

“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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Rice Pudding, Baked, Small