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Dessert

A Rich Rice Pudding

A sweet rice pudding made with rice, eggs, cream, butter, suet, currants, brandy, peach water, nutmeg, and lemon peel.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Currant and brandy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,057 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

A Rich Rice Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the filling

  1. Boil the rice in water with salt until tender; drain well.

  2. Mix the rice with the yolks and whites of the eggs, cream, and melted butter.

  3. Add the suet, currants, brandy, peach water, nutmeg, and lemon peel; mix well.

Bake and serve

  1. Line a dish with pastry, fill it with the mixture, and top with candied fruit if desired.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven (350°F / 175°C) until set.

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. Currant + brandytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

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

  3. Rice + beeftop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,265 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  4. Rice + peachtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together171 recipes

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

  5. Brandy + peachtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together339 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the rice and cream and help the pudding set as it bakes.
Rice
Forms the bulk of the pudding, giving it body and a tender texture.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, contributing moisture and a softer crumb.
Suet
Adds fat and richness, giving the filling a moist, tender texture.
Currants
Add sweetness and chewy bursts of fruit throughout the filling.

The step that matters

Bake until set. Eggs thicken as they heat, so the pudding needs to reach a gentle set in the oven. Underbaking leaves a runny centre, while overbaking can make the eggs curdle and turn the texture grainy.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rice, egg, cream, butter, beef, brandy, peach):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Apricotfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, egg, cream, butter, beef, brandy, peach. 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

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