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Dessert

Lemon Rice Pudding

A baked lemon‑flavored rice pudding made with boiled rice, milk, sugar, eggs, butter, and lemon zest and juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Lemon Rice Pudding

Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Lemon Rice 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.

Make the rice base

  1. Warm the milk in a saucepan.

  2. Add the rice, butter, grated lemon rind, granulated sugar, and salt. Stir thoroughly.

  3. When the mixture is not too hot, stir in the beaten yolks of the eggs.

  4. Add the lemon juice.

Top and bake

  1. Beat the egg whites to stiff peaks with the powdered sugar.

  2. Pour the rice mixture into a buttered baking dish.

  3. Spread the egg whites on top.

  4. Bake at 300°F (150°C) for 30 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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

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

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

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

  3. Rice + lemontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,366 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  4. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

  5. Rice + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Yolks thicken the custard base, while beaten whites form a light, airy topping.
Rice
Provides body and bulk, giving the pudding its soft, spoonable texture.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that sets with the eggs into a creamy custard.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, contributing to a smooth, tender texture.
Lemon
Lemon rind adds aroma and juice adds acidity that brightens the sweetness.

The step that matters

Stir in the egg yolks only when the mixture is not too hot. If the mixture is too hot, the yolk proteins can scramble into lumps instead of thickening the base smoothly. Letting it cool slightly first helps keep the pudding silky.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

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