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Dessert

Pudding

A baked rice pudding topped with a stiff-peak meringue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Rice and almond match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,456 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

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 the pudding

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

  2. In a bowl, combine rice, milk or cream, butter, sugar, lemon rind, and egg yolks.

  3. Pour the mixture into a well-buttered dish.

Add the meringue and bake

  1. In another bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form, then gently mix in the sifted sugar.

  2. Spread the meringue over the pudding mixture evenly.

  3. Bake for 30 minutes, until the meringue is a clear brown and crisp.

  4. Serve immediately after removing from the oven.

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 + almondtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,456 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  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. Lemon + almondtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Butter + almondtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

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

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 softens and thickens during baking.
Milk or cream
Provides the liquid that cooks the rice and gives the pudding its moisture and richness.
Egg yolks
Thicken the custard-like base and add richness and colour.
Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks, they form the airy meringue topping that sets and browns in the oven.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and, in the meringue, helps stabilise the whites and promotes browning.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and flavour in the pudding base.

The step that matters

Beating the egg whites to stiff peaks. Whites must be fully whipped before the sugar is folded in; under-beaten whites will deflate and make the meringue weep or stay flat. Gently folding keeps the air in the foam.

“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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