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Rice Puddings Baked, or Boiled

A baked or boiled rice pudding flavored with lemon peel, cinnamon, nutmeg, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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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 Puddings 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.

  2. In a quart saucepan, combine the rice with cold water and bring to a boil for 5 minutes. Drain the water and add 1 quart of milk, lemon peel, and cinnamon.

  3. Simmer gently for at least 1 hour and 15 minutes, stirring every 5 minutes until the rice is tender.

  4. Remove from heat and stir in 1½ ounces of butter.

Make the custard

  1. Beat the eggs in a separate bowl, then add nutmeg and sugar, mixing until smooth.

  2. Incorporate the egg mixture into the rice mixture until well combined.

Bake and serve

  1. Line a pie dish with puff paste, notch the edges, and pour in the pudding mixture.

  2. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 45 minutes until firm.

  3. For a custard-like texture, add 1 more egg and ½ pint more milk, boiling for 1 hour instead.

  4. For individual puddings, butter small teacups and bake or boil for 30 minutes.

  5. Serve with white 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. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Lemon + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Rice
Provides the bulk and starch that thickens the pudding as it simmers and cooks.
Milk
Supplies the liquid that the rice absorbs, giving the pudding its creamy body.
Eggs
Set when baked, giving the pudding structure and a firm, custard-like texture.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, contributing smoothness and a silky mouthfeel.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps browning on the surface during baking.

The step that matters

Simmering the rice in milk. Stirring regularly and keeping the heat gentle stops the milk from scorching on the pan base and lets the rice cook evenly until tender and creamy.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Coconutfits about as well
  3. Raisinfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

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

More rice pudding recipes

Baked 88Apple 84with Meringue 40Boiled 38French 30Lemon 29 See all 1,220 →

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