Skip to main content
Dessert

Rice Pie

A baked pie made with milk, rice flour, eggs, sugar, and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Rice Pie

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.

Make the custard

  1. Boil the milk in a saucepan.

  2. Mix the rice flour with a little cold milk until smooth, then add the rice flour mixture to the boiling milk and stir the mixture well.

  3. Remove the saucepan from heat.

  4. Let the mixture cool.

  5. Once cooled, add the beaten eggs, sugar, and vanilla extract.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into a pie crust.

  2. Bake at 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. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

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

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

  3. Milk + ricetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,374 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

  5. Rice + vanillatop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,352 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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 flour
Thickens the milk into a smooth custard as its starches swell when heated.
Eggs
Set the custard during baking, giving it structure and a firm sliced texture.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard and provides creaminess and moisture.
Butter
Adds richness and a soft, tender mouthfeel to the filling.

The step that matters

Let the mixture cool before adding the eggs. Eggs added to a very hot thickened milk mixture can scramble or cook unevenly. Cooling first lets the eggs blend smoothly and set into an even custard.

Swap the vanilla

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

  1. Vanillathe original
  2. Raisinfits about as well
  3. Coconutfits less well
  4. Figfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, butter, rice, flour, egg, 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 pie recipes

Apple 5 See all 36 →

You might also like

Rice CakeRice Cake120 recipesVanilla Ice CreamVanilla Ice Cream108 recipesRice CreamRice Cream43 recipesRice JellyRice Jelly42 recipes