Why it works: Cinnamon and rice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,137 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓
Rice Flummery
Ingredients
Directions
Make the pudding
Boil 1 pint of whole milk with a bit of lemon peel and cinnamon in a saucepan.
Mix in a little cold milk and enough rice flour to thicken the mixture.
Add the rice flour mixture to the hot milk and boil until smooth and thick, stirring to prevent burning.
Pour the mixture into a basin and let it cool.
Serve
Once cold, turn it out onto a dish and serve with cream, milk, or custard.
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.
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Cinnamon + ricetop 4% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together2,137 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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Lemon + cinnamontop 7% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together7,950 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
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Milk + ricetop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,374 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Cinnamon + flourtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together17,341 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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
- Milk
- Forms the liquid base that the rice flour thickens into a pudding.
- Rice flour
- Thickens the hot milk as its starch swells, giving the pudding a set, smooth body.
The step that matters
Stirring while the thickener boils. Rice flour settles and scorches on the bottom of the pan if left unstirred. Constant stirring keeps the starch dispersed so the mixture thickens smoothly instead of lumping or burning.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, cinnamon, rice, flour, cream):
- Vanillafits better
- Raisinfits better
- Coconutfits better
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against milk, cinnamon, rice, flour, cream. 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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