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 ↓
Baked Rice
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
Pick and wash the rice.
Place the rice in a 2-quart dish.
Cover the rice with fresh milk.
Add sugar, salt, and cinnamon.
Bake
Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven, stirring once after 30 minutes.
After 2 hours, stir in enough milk to fill the dish.
Bake for an additional hour.
Serve
Serve with sugar and cream.
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.
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Rice + cinnamontop 4% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together2,137 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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Rice + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,374 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together12,655 recipes
Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).
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Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together30,779 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together77,875 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 swells and softens as it bakes, giving the pudding its body and thick texture.
- Milk
- It is the cooking liquid that the rice absorbs, and its proteins help the pudding set creamy.
- Sugar
- It adds sweetness and helps the top brown lightly in the oven.
The step that matters
Stirring once after 30 minutes. Rice grains are dense and sink to the bottom of the dish. One stir partway through spreads them out so they cook evenly in the milk instead of settling into a dry layer.
“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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