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Rice Caudle

A sweet rice porridge made with milk, brandy, sugar, cinnamon, lemon peel, and cloves.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Rice Caudle

Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Rice Caudle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the rice

  1. Bring the water to a boil.

  2. Mix the grated rice with a little cold water and pour it into the boiling water.

  3. Cook until it reaches a proper consistency.

  4. Add sugar, lemon peel, cinnamon, and brandy, then boil until smooth.

  5. Soak Carolina rice in water for 1 hour, then strain it.

Make the caudle

  1. Add 2 tablespoons of the soaked rice to the milk in a saucepan.

  2. Simmer until it can be pulped through a sieve.

  3. Combine the pulp and milk in the saucepan with a crushed clove and sugar.

  4. Simmer for 10 minutes, adding more milk if too thick.

Serve

  1. Serve with thin toast.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Rice + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,137 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

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

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

  5. Cinnamon + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Grated rice
Thickens the liquid as it cooks, giving the caudle a smooth, body-rich texture.
Milk
Forms the creamy base of the caudle and adds richness and softness.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the spices and brandy.
Brandy
Adds aroma and flavor, and its alcohol carries the spice and citrus notes.

The step that matters

Simmer until smooth. Rice starch thickens as it cooks and can clump or scorch on the bottom of the pan if heat is too high or the mixture is not stirred. Keeping it at a gentle simmer and stirring lets the starch swell evenly, producing a smooth texture.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rice, sugar, cinnamon, brandy, milk, clove):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, sugar, cinnamon, brandy, milk, clove. 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.

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