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Dessert

Apple and Rice Pudding

A sweet pudding made with boiled rice, grated apples, milk, eggs, butter, sugar, and sherry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Rice and corn match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 933 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Apple and Rice Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cook the rice until every grain is separate.

  2. Measure the cooked rice.

  3. Peel and grate the apples.

  4. Mix the grated apples with 2 tablespoons of sugar, then set the mixture aside.

  5. Beat the egg yolks with 4 tablespoons of sugar.

  6. Beat the egg whites with 1 tablespoon until stiff.

Make the custard

  1. Heat the milk and salt over boiling water.

  2. Mix the corn starch with a little cold milk, then stir the mixture into the hot milk.

  3. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  4. Stir in the yolks, butter, rice, and apples.

  5. Remove the mixture from heat.

  6. Add the lemon extract and the sherry wine.

Bake

  1. Add the beaten egg whites.

  2. Pour the mixture into a pudding pan.

  3. Place the pudding pan in another pan with boiling water.

  4. Bake for 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. Rice + corntop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together933 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  4. Milk + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  5. Apple + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,104 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Yolks enrich the custard, while whipped whites lighten it and help it rise.
Rice
Forms the body of the pudding and soaks up the custard for a soft, tender texture.
Corn starch
Thickens the milk mixture into a smooth, sliceable custard when it boils.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the custard.
Apples
Add moisture, subtle tartness, and fruity flavour that balances the sugar.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the starch thickens and the eggs set into.

The step that matters

Bring the starch mixture to a full boil. Cornstarch only thickens fully once it reaches boiling, and the granules swell and gel as they heat. If the mixture stays below a boil, the custard stays thin and may stay grainy or runny after baking.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Applethe original

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