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Dessert

Plain Rice Pudding

A sweet rice pudding made with butter, sugar, spices, eggs, and milk, baked until set.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Plain Rice 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. Pick over the rice.

  2. Wash the rice.

  3. Boil the rice until soft.

  4. Drain the water.

  5. While warm, add the cold butter.

  6. When cool, mix in the sugar, nutmeg, and cinnamon.

Make the custard

  1. Beat the eggs separately until light.

  2. Add the beaten eggs to the rice mixture.

  3. Gradually stir in the sweet milk.

Bake and serve

  1. Butter a pudding dish.

  2. Pour the mixture into the dish.

  3. Bake for 1 hour at 350°F (175°C).

  4. Serve warm with sweet 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.

  1. Nutmeg + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  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. Rice + nutmegtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Rice
Forms the body of the pudding, softening as it boils and setting into a tender base.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and set during baking, giving the pudding its firm, custard-like structure.
Sweet milk
Provides the liquid that cooks the rice and eggs into a creamy, moist custard.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and contributes to browning on the surface during baking.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving a smoother mouthfeel to the pudding.

The step that matters

Gradually stir in the sweet milk. Adding the milk slowly keeps the beaten eggs from scrambling or clumping when they meet the warm rice, so the custard stays smooth and evenly set.

“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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