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Dessert

Geneva Pudding

A baked apple and rice pudding made with sour cooking apples, rice, butter, milk, cinnamon, salt, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and cinnamon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,598 recipes. Both carry methyl cinnamate, which smells strawberry. The science ↓

Geneva Pudding

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

  1. Wash and drain the rice.

  2. Place the rice in a saucepan with 2 pints of milk and 2 pinches of salt.

  3. Cook until tender, adding more milk as needed, and sweeten to taste.

Make the apple puree

  1. While the rice cooks, pare, core, and slice the apples.

  2. Combine the apples with the butter, cinnamon, and 2 tablespoons of sugar in a jar.

  3. Place the jar in a saucepan half full of boiling water and cook until the apples are tender.

  4. Rub the apple mixture through a fine sieve.

Assemble and bake

  1. Butter a fireproof china souffle dish and layer the rice and apple puree alternately, with rice on the bottom and top.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for 35 to 40 minutes.

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. Apple + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,598 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  2. Rice + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,137 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Sour cooking apples
Break down into a smooth puree that gives the pudding its body and tart flavour.
Rice
Softens in the milk to form the tender, starchy layers of the pudding.
Milk
Cooks the rice until tender and keeps the pudding moist as it bakes.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that makes the apple puree smooth and silky.

The step that matters

Cook the rice until fully tender. Rice that is still firm will not soften in the oven, so the layers stay grainy. Adding milk gradually lets the starch absorb liquid evenly and become creamy.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Applethe original

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

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