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Dessert

Ground Rice Pudding

A sweet pudding made from ground rice, thick cream, milk, cinnamon or lemon, butter, sugar, eggs, sherry or brandy, and jam.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Rice and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,137 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Ground Rice Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the base

  1. Mix ground rice with thick cream until smooth.

  2. Boil new milk with cinnamon or lemon rind, then add to the rice mixture.

  3. Stir over heat until thickened, then add butter, sugar, and salt.

  4. Pour into a basin and let cool.

Bake and serve

  1. Mix in egg yolks, egg white, and sherry or brandy.

  2. Place jam at the bottom of a buttered pie dish, cover with the mixture.

  3. Bake in a moderate oven (350°F / 175°C) until set.

  4. Sift pounded cinnamon or powdered sugar over the pudding before serving.

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 + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,137 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Ground rice
Thickens the milk and gives the pudding its body as it cooks.
Eggs
Set the custard during baking and add richness and structure.
Butter
Adds fat for a rich texture and a softer, smoother mouthfeel.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the richness of the eggs and butter.
Thick cream
Adds fat and richness, giving a creamier, smoother texture.
New milk
Forms the liquid base that the ground rice thickens into a pudding.

The step that matters

Stir over heat until thickened. Ground rice must be fully cooked and thickened before the eggs go in. Stirring prevents scorching and lumps, and the starch needs heat to swell and set the base properly.

Swap the cinnamon

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

  1. Cinnamonthe original
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Celeryfits less well
  4. Gingerfits less well

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

More rice pudding recipes

Baked 88Apple 84with Meringue 40Boiled 38French 30Lemon 29 See all 1,220 →

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