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Dessert

Rice Caramel Pudding

A sweet pudding made from rice, milk, eggs, and caramelized sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Rice Caramel Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the rice

  1. Wash the rice and soak it in plenty of water for 3 hours.

  2. Drain the water, then place the rice and cinnamon in a double boiler with all but ½ cup of the milk. Cook for 2 hours.

Line the mold

  1. In a small frying pan, heat the sugar until it turns brown and becomes liquid.

  2. Quickly pour the liquid sugar into a warmed 3‑pint mold, coating all parts of it.

Finish and bake

  1. Beat the eggs, add the reserved ½ cup of milk, and stir this into the boiling rice along with the salt.

  2. Cook for about 1 minute after boiling, then pour the mixture into the sugar‑lined mold.

  3. Cover the mold and place it in a pan of boiling water. Bake for 30 minutes.

  4. Remove from the oven and let it stand for 10 minutes before turning it out onto a flat dish.

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

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

  3. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Rice
Its starch thickens as it cooks, giving the pudding its body and soft texture.
Eggs
They set as they heat, binding the pudding into a firm, sliceable custard.
Milk
It supplies the liquid that cooks the rice and gives the pudding moisture and richness.
Sugar
Caramelized, it coats the mold and becomes the sweet sauce on the finished pudding.
Cinnamon
It adds a warm aroma that flavors the milk as the rice cooks.

The step that matters

Stirring the eggs into the boiling rice. Eggs can scramble if they meet very hot liquid without enough stirring. Beating them first and stirring steadily brings them in evenly, keeping the custard smooth before it is poured and baked.

“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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