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Dessert

Rice Puddings

A baked dessert made from ground rice, cream, eggs, butter, milk, cinnamon, nutmeg, rose water, and raisins.

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

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.

Make the custard base

  1. Boil the ground rice in water until soft.

  2. Beat the yolks of 4 eggs.

  3. Mix the beaten yolks with cream, sugar, and butter.

  4. Combine the rice mixture with the egg mixture.

Cook the milk mixture

  1. Boil ¼ pound of rice in 1 quart of milk with a stick of cinnamon.

  2. Stir the mixture often.

  3. Stir in ¼ pound of butter.

  4. Sweeten to taste.

  5. Add grated nutmeg and rose water.

Bake

  1. Beat 8 eggs.

  2. Mix the beaten eggs into the mixture.

  3. Pour the mixture into a buttered dish.

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

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

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

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

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

  5. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set the custard and add richness and structure as they cook.
Ground rice
Thickens the pudding and gives it a soft, starchy body as it cooks.
Cream
Adds fat for a rich, smooth texture.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth mouthfeel.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the flavour of the dairy and spices.
Milk
Cooks with the rice to form the creamy base and supplies moisture.

The step that matters

Stir the milk and rice mixture often. Rice starch thickens as it cooks, and the base can stick and scorch on the bottom of the pan if left alone. Frequent stirring keeps the heat even and the texture smooth.

“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

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