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Rice Flummery

A sweet milk-based pudding thickened with rice flour, sweetened with sugar and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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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 ↓

Rice Flummery

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a saucepan, bring the milk to a boil.

  2. Stir in enough rice flour to thicken the milk to a stiff batter.

  3. Add the butter and sugar, mixing well.

  4. Pour the mixture into cups and let it cool.

  5. Serve with cream and a sprinkle of nutmeg if desired.

  6. To prevent burning, place the saucepan in a larger pan of hot water while boiling.

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

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

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

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

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Milk
Forms the liquid base that the rice flour thickens into a pudding.
Rice flour
Its starch thickens the hot milk into a stiff batter that sets as it cools.
Butter
Adds fat for a richer flavour and a smoother, softer texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to balance the flavour of the milk.

The step that matters

Boiling the milk without scorching it. Milk scorches easily on direct heat because its sugars and proteins brown and stick to the pan. Standing the saucepan in a larger pan of hot water spreads the heat more gently and lowers that risk.

“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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