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Dessert

Empress Pudding

A layered rice pudding made with milk, rice, butter, sugar, jam, and custard sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter 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 ↓

Empress Pudding

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.

Make the rice

  1. Simmer the rice in the milk until tender and fairly dry.

  2. Add the butter, sugar, and salt to the rice mixture.

Layer the dish

  1. Line the edge of a pie dish with paste.

  2. Spread a thin layer of rice on the bottom of the dish.

  3. Cover thickly with jam or stewed fruit.

  4. Repeat layers until the dish is full, finishing with a layer of rice.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for about 30 minutes.

  2. Serve with boiled custard sauce.

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

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

  2. Milk + ricetop 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. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

Milk and sugar 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
Absorbs the milk as it simmers, becoming tender and giving the pudding its body.
Milk
Cooks the rice and sets into a creamy, custard-like base as it bakes.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, tender mouthfeel to the rice.
Jam or stewed fruit
Adds sweetness and fruity moisture between the rice layers.
Sugar
Sweetens the rice and helps the top brown lightly in the oven.

The step that matters

Simmer the rice until tender and fairly dry. Rice that is still firm or too wet will not soften fully in the oven and can make the pudding watery or grainy. Cooking it down first lets the starch swell and gives the layers a consistent texture.

“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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