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Rice Pudding Meringue

Rice pudding topped with a sweet meringue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 Pudding Meringue

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the rice

  1. Soak the rice in the milk for 3 hours.

  2. Heat the mixture in a double boiler and simmer until the rice is tender.

Make the pudding base

  1. Cream the butter and sugar together.

  2. Add the beaten egg yolks and 1 beaten egg white to the butter mixture.

  3. Once the rice has cooled slightly, combine it with the butter mixture and add the lemon peel, mace, and cinnamon.

  4. Pour the mixture into a buttered pudding dish.

Bake and top

  1. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for about 40 minutes.

  2. Whisk 3 egg whites with a little sugar and lemon juice to make a meringue.

  3. Spread the meringue over the pudding.

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. Lemon + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  4. Milk + ricetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,374 recipes

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

  5. Mace + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Egg yolks and whites set as the pudding bakes, giving it a custard-like structure and richness.
Rice
Cooked rice gives the pudding its body and bulk as it absorbs the milk.
Milk
Provides the liquid that the rice absorbs and that bakes into a creamy texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the meringue whisk into a glossy, stable foam.
Butter
Adds fat for a richer, softer crumb and a smoother mouthfeel.
Lemon peel
Its aromatic oils add a bright citrus fragrance that lifts the sweet custard.

The step that matters

Cooling the rice before combining it with the butter and egg mixture. Eggs begin to set at moderate heat, so adding very hot rice can scramble them and leave a grainy texture. Letting the rice cool slightly keeps the custard smooth and evenly set during baking.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Gingerfits better
  4. Macethe original

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