Name: Baked Rice Pudding, Without Eggs
Ingredients: 1 quart rice, picked and well washed; 2 teaspoons salt; 6 quarts sweet milk; 1 pound sugar; Nutmeg and cinnamon to taste

Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Baked Rice Pudding, Without Eggs

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

Soak the rice in 1 quart of milk for 2 hours.
Add the remaining milk, sugar, salt, and spices to the soaked rice and stir well.
Pour the mixture into a well-greased baking dish.

Bake and serve

Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) for 2 to 2.5 hours.
Serve hot or cold.

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.

Nutmeg + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together11,917 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Rice + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,137 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Rice + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,374 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Rice + nutmegtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,779 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,655 recipes

Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Rice: Provides the body of the pudding as it softens and absorbs the milk while baking.
Sweet milk: Forms the liquid base that the rice absorbs and that thickens into a creamy custard.
Sugar: Adds sweetness and helps the pudding brown slightly on the surface.

The step that matters

Bake in a slow oven. A low, steady heat lets the rice soften and release starch slowly so the milk thickens gently without scorching or curdling. Baking too hot can burn the bottom before the rice is tender.

Swap the nutmeg

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

Nutmegthe original
Cardamomfits about as well
Gingerfits less well
Clovefits less well

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

Rice Cake120 recipes

Cinnamon Rolls71 recipes

Rice Cream43 recipes

Cinnamon Cake42 recipes

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Baked Rice Pudding, Without Eggs