Skip to main content
Dessert

Rice Pudding, Iced

A chilled dessert made from boiled rice, thick cream, and sweetened with sugar, flavored with lemon, nutmeg, vanilla, or almonds.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Cream and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Rice Pudding, Iced

Ingredients

Directions

Make the rice

  1. Wash the rice and remove discolored grains.

  2. Boil the rice in plenty of water until tender but not broken.

  3. Drain the rice and pour the thick cream over it.

  4. Boil again until the mixture is very soft.

Finish and freeze

  1. Turn it out into a bowl, beat well, and sweeten and flavor as desired.

  2. Transfer to a plain mold and freeze until firm.

  3. Serve on a neatly folded napkin.

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. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  2. Rice + lemontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,366 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  3. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  4. Rice + creamtop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  5. Rice + sugartop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,744 recipes

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

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

Carolina rice
Forms the body of the pudding as it softens and thickens during cooking.
Thick cream
Adds richness and fat, giving a smooth, creamy texture once frozen.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and softens the texture of the frozen dessert.

The step that matters

Boil again until the mixture is very soft. Rice must be cooked until fully soft so it blends smoothly with the cream. Underdone grains stay firm and grainy, and the frozen pudding will feel gritty rather than creamy.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, cream, 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.

You might also like

Lemon Rice PuddingLemon Rice Pudding19 recipesLemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipesRice CakeRice Cake120 recipes