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Dessert

A Good French Rice Pudding, or Gateau De Riz

A baked rice pudding made with milk, cream, rice, butter, sugar, lemon rind, egg yolks, egg whites, and bread crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

A Good French Rice Pudding, or Gateau De Riz

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.

Cook the rice

  1. Gently swell the rice in the milk or milk and cream until tender.

  2. Add the butter, sugar, salt, and lemon rind, and simmer until the rice is fully swollen.

  3. Remove from heat and let cool slightly, then stir in the beaten egg yolks gradually.

Assemble

  1. Coat a small baking pan with clarified butter, then sprinkle with stale bread crumbs, shaking off excess.

  2. Whisk the egg whites until stiff, then gently fold them into the rice mixture.

  3. Pour the mixture into the prepared pan without disturbing the bread crumbs.

Bake

  1. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) for 1 hour until browned and firm.

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 + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Milk + ricetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,374 recipes

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

  4. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Rice + lemontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,366 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

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

What each ingredient does

Rice
Swells into tender grains that give the pudding its body and bulk.
Milk
Provides the liquid that the rice absorbs and cooks in, supplying moisture and softness.
Egg yolks
Enrich the pudding and help it set firm as the mixture bakes.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the top brown during baking.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender, smooth texture.

The step that matters

Stirring in the egg yolks gradually. Egg yolks scramble if they meet hot rice all at once. Adding the hot mixture slowly while stirring, after it has cooled slightly, keeps the yolks smooth and evenly blended into the custard.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

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

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