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Dessert

Caramel Rice Pudding

A sweet rice pudding flavored with caramel, milk, eggs, and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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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 ↓

Caramel Rice Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the caramel

  1. Prepare the caramel by dissolving the loaf sugar in water over low heat until golden.

  2. Line a mold with the caramel.

Make the pudding

  1. Simmer the rice in milk until tender, then cool slightly.

  2. Stir in the beaten eggs, caster sugar, and vanilla essence.

  3. Pour the mixture into the prepared mold, cover with buttered paper, and steam for nearly 1 hour.

Serve

  1. Serve hot or cold.

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

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

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

Loaf sugar
Melts and browns into the caramel that lines the mold and becomes the sauce.
Rice
Softens in simmering milk and gives the pudding its body and bulk.
Milk
Cooks with the rice and forms the creamy, moist base of the pudding.
Eggs
Set during steaming to bind the pudding into a sliceable custard.
Castor sugar
Sweetens the pudding base.

The step that matters

Caramel to golden. Sugar darkens quickly once it passes golden, so over-browning gives a bitter taste. Cooking over low heat and watching closely keeps the caramel sweet and lining the mold evenly.

“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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