Skip to main content
Dessert

Rice Pudding, Baked or Boiled

A sweet rice pudding made by cooking rice in milk, cinnamon, sugar, butter, eggs, and nutmeg, baked or boiled.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg 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 ↓

Rice Pudding, Baked or Boiled

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.

Prepare the rice

  1. Wash and clean the rice in cold water.

Cook the rice in milk

  1. Boil the rice in 1 quart of milk with the cinnamon on low heat until tender, about 1 hour, stirring often.

  2. Remove from heat and discard the cinnamon.

  3. Stir in sugar, butter, beaten eggs, and nutmeg until smooth.

Bake or boil and serve

  1. Line a pie dish with puff pastry.

  2. Bake in a buttered dish for 45 minutes at 350°F (175°C).

  3. Add 1 more egg and ½ pint of milk for a custard-like texture.

  4. Add your choice of fruit.

  5. Boil for 1 hour.

  6. Serve with wine sauce or butter and sugar.

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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

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

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

  5. Rice + nutmegtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Rice
Swells as it cooks in milk, giving the pudding its body and tender texture.
Milk
Cooks the rice and, with the eggs, forms the creamy custard base.
Eggs
Set when heated, thickening the pudding into a custard-like texture.
Butter
Adds fat, which gives richness and a smoother mouthfeel.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the flavour of the milk and spices.

The step that matters

Simmer the rice in milk on low heat, stirring often. Milk contains sugars and proteins that scorch and stick to the bottom of the pan at high heat. Low heat and frequent stirring keep the rice cooking evenly and the milk from burning.

Swap the currant

The recipe marks currant as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rice, milk, cinnamon, sugar, butter, egg, nutmeg):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Currantthe original

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

You might also like

Rice CakeRice Cake120 recipesCinnamon RollsCinnamon Rolls71 recipesRed Currant JellyRed Currant Jelly65 recipesRice CreamRice Cream43 recipes