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Dessert

Rice and Apple Pudding

A baked pudding made from boiled rice, stewed apples, butter, eggs, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Rice and apple are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,311 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Rice and Apple Pudding

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.

Make the rice and apple mixture

  1. Boil the rice in water until very soft, stirring to prevent burning.

  2. Stew the apples until soft, then press the pulp through a sieve.

  3. Mix the apple pulp thoroughly with the rice.

Finish and bake

  1. Add the butter and beaten egg yolks, then sweeten to taste.

  2. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C).

  3. Beat the egg whites until stiff.

  4. Spread the stiff egg whites on top before serving.

  5. Serve chilled for best flavor.

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 + appletop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,311 recipes

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

  2. Apple + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,706 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Rice
Cooked until very soft, it forms the body and creamy texture of the pudding.
Apples
Stewed and sieved into a pulp, they add moisture, sweetness and fruity flavor.
Egg yolks
Enrich the mixture and help it set into a custard-like texture when baked.
Egg whites
Beaten stiff and spread on top, they form a light, airy meringue topping.

The step that matters

Beating the egg whites until stiff. Egg whites must be beaten until they hold firm peaks, because the air they trap gives the meringue topping its light, airy structure. Underbeaten whites stay runny and may slump into the pudding.

Swap the apple

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

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

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