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Dessert

Rice Pudding

A custard-like dessert made from rice, milk, butter, cream, eggs, and spices, baked and served with marmalade.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,318 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Rice Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA gentle oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a gentle oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the rice base

  1. Simmer the rice in the milk until thick.

  2. Add the butter and cream, then bring to a boil.

  3. Let it cool, then mix in the beaten egg yolks and whites.

  4. Stir in sugar, nutmeg, lemon peel, and cinnamon if desired.

Bake and serve

  1. Butter small cups and fill them three-quarters full, placing citron or marmalade at the bottom.

  2. Bake at 300°F (150°C) for 45 minutes.

  3. Serve with sweet 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. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  4. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  5. Rice + nutmegtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Rice
Its starch swells in the milk and thickens the pudding into a creamy body.
Milk
Provides the liquid that the rice absorbs and that the eggs set into a custard.
Eggs
Yolks and whites set when baked, giving the pudding its firm, sliceable structure.
Butter
Adds fat for a rich mouthfeel and a smooth, tender texture.
Cream
Adds fat and moisture, making the pudding richer and softer.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the richness of the butter, cream and eggs.

The step that matters

Bake at 300°F (150°C) for 45 minutes. Eggs set gently at a low, steady heat. Too much heat makes the egg proteins tighten and curdle or weep, leaving a grainy, watery pudding instead of a smooth one.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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