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Dessert

Whole Rice Pudding Without Eggs

A baked rice pudding made with rice, sugar, butter, and milk, without eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓

Whole Rice Pudding Without Eggs

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Break the butter into small bits.

  2. Wash the rice in several waters.

Assemble and soak

  1. Put the rice, sugar, and butter into a pudding dish.

  2. Fill the dish with milk.

  3. Let it soak for several hours.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven for nearly 2 hours.

  2. Add more milk as the milk evaporates.

  3. Continue adding milk until the rice is swollen and soft.

  4. Let it brown 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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Rice + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

Sugar and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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 absorbs milk, forming the pudding's body.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and, as it heats, helps the top and edges brown.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a softer, smoother mouthfeel.
Milk
Serves as the only liquid, which the rice absorbs as it cooks to become tender.

The step that matters

Adding milk as it evaporates. Rice keeps absorbing liquid while it bakes. If the dish dries out before the grains swell and soften, the rice stays firm and the pudding can scorch. Topping up with milk keeps the grains hydrated until the starch has fully gelatinized.

“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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