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Dessert

Plain Rice Pudding

Rice pudding made with rice, milk, salt, butter, sugar, optional raspberry vinegar or preserved fruit, cinnamon, and beaten egg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Rice and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,137 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Plain Rice 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.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Combine the rice, milk, and salt in a baking dish.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in the oven until set.

  2. Remove the skin from the top and transfer the rice to a warmed, buttered basin.

  3. Press the rice into the basin and turn it out onto a serving dish.

  4. Serve with melted butter and sugar, and optionally with raspberry vinegar or preserved fruit.

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  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. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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
Forms the body of the pudding as it absorbs milk and softens during slow baking.
Milk
Provides the liquid that cooks the rice and, with its proteins, sets into a creamy custard.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel, and is served on top for flavour.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the savoury richness of the milk and butter.

The step that matters

Bake until set. Milk proteins coagulate as they heat, so the pudding firms into a sliceable body. Underbaking leaves it runny, while overbaking can dry it out or scorch the skin on top.

Swap the raspberry

The recipe marks raspberry as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rice, milk, butter, sugar, cinnamon, egg):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Raspberrythe original

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