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Dessert

Rice Puddings Baked, or Boiled

A sweet rice pudding made with rice, milk, butter, eggs, spices, and optional dried fruit, baked or boiled.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 Baked, or Boiled

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.

Cook the rice

  1. Wash and clean the rice in cold water.

  2. Combine the rice and 1 quart of cold water in a quart saucepan.

  3. Bring to a boil for 5 minutes.

  4. Drain the water.

  5. Add 1 quart of milk, lemon peel, and cinnamon to the rice.

  6. Boil gently for at least 1 hour and 15 minutes, stirring every 5 minutes until the rice is tender.

  7. Remove from heat and stir in 1.5 ounces of butter.

Make the custard

  1. Beat 3 eggs in a separate bowl, then add nutmeg and sugar.

  2. Stir this mixture into the rice until smooth.

Bake and serve

  1. Line a pie dish with puff paste.

  2. Notch the edges of the pie dish.

  3. Pour the pudding mixture into the pie dish.

  4. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 45 minutes until firm.

  5. Serve with white wine sauce or butter and sugar.

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. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Rice
Its starch swells and softens during long simmering, giving the pudding its body.
Milk
Provides liquid and milk solids that cook into a creamy, tender base.
Eggs
Set when baked, binding the pudding so it turns firm rather than loose.
Butter
Adds fat for a richer mouthfeel and smoother texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps browning on the surface during baking.

The step that matters

Stirring the eggs into the rice. Adding eggs to very hot rice can scramble them. Stirring steadily and letting the rice cool slightly keeps the mixture smooth and evenly set when baked.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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