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Dessert

Rice and Tapioca Pudding

A pudding made from soaked rice and tapioca, sweetened with sugar, flavored with cinnamon and a pinch of salt, baked slowly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Rice and cinnamon 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 and Tapioca Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Soak the tapioca in 1½ pints of milk for 3 hours.

  2. Wash the rice in 3 waters and soak it in the remaining 1½ pints of milk for 3 hours.

Mix and bake

  1. Combine the soaked tapioca and rice, stirring in the sugar gradually until dissolved.

  2. Season with cinnamon and a pinch of salt, mixing well.

  3. Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) for 2 hours.

Serve

  1. Make it on Saturday and serve cold on Sunday with sugar and cream.

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Rice
Starch that thickens the pudding and gives it body as it bakes.
Tapioca
Starch that thickens the milk and gives the pudding a soft, slightly chewy texture.
Milk
Liquid base that cooks the starches and forms the body of the pudding.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and helps it brown slightly during baking.

The step that matters

Soaking the rice and tapioca. Soaking hydrates the starch granules so they cook evenly and soften during the slow bake, giving a smooth rather than grainy texture.

“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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