Skip to main content
Dessert

Ground Rice Pudding

A sweet pudding made from ground rice, cream, milk, cinnamon, butter, sugar, eggs, and sherry or brandy, baked and served with jam.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Ground 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.

Make the base

  1. Mix the ground rice with the thick cream until smooth.

  2. Boil the milk with the cinnamon or lemon rind, then add to the rice mixture.

  3. Stir over low heat until thickened, then add butter, sugar, and salt.

  4. Pour the mixture into a basin and let it cool.

Assemble and bake

  1. Once cool, mix in the egg yolks, egg white, and sherry or brandy.

  2. Spread jam at the bottom of a buttered pie dish and pour the mixture on top.

  3. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until set.

Serve

  1. Sift pounded cinnamon or powdered sugar over the pudding before serving.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  5. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Ground rice
Thickens the milk and cream into a soft, spoonable custard as it cooks.
Egg yolks
Enrich the pudding and help it set into a firm, creamy texture when baked.
Egg white
Adds structure to the custard so it sets when baked.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, tender mouthfeel.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and contributes to browning on the surface.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the rice cooks in and sets around.

The step that matters

Stir over low heat until thickened. Ground rice thickens as its starch absorbs liquid and swells. High heat can scorch the milk on the bottom of the pan and make the mixture lumpy, so gentle, constant stirring gives a smooth result.

Swap the cinnamon

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

  1. Cinnamonthe original
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Celeryfits less well
  4. Gingerfits less well

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

You might also like

Rice CakeRice Cake120 recipesCinnamon RollsCinnamon Rolls71 recipesRice CreamRice Cream43 recipesCinnamon CakeCinnamon Cake42 recipes