Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓
Baked Puddings
Ingredients
Directions
The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.
Prepare
Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).
Make the filling
Cook the rice in the milk until tender.
In a bowl, mix the cooked rice, butter, sugar, eggs, and lemon rind.
Pour the mixture into a baking dish.
Bake
Bake for 30 to 40 minutes until set.
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.
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Rice + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,374 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Rice + lemontop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,366 recipes
Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).
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Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together19,053 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Rice + buttertop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together9,645 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Rice
- Gives the pudding its body and bulk as it cooks tender in the milk.
- Eggs
- Set during baking to bind the pudding into a soft, sliceable custard.
- Milk
- Cooks the rice and forms the creamy base of the pudding.
- Butter
- Adds richness and a smooth, tender texture to the pudding.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the pudding and helps it brown lightly at the surface.
The step that matters
Bake until set. Baking until the egg proteins just set binds the custard; underbaking leaves it runny, while overbaking can make it curdled and dry.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rice, milk, butter, sugar, egg):
- Vanillafits better
- Coconutfits better
- Figfits about as well
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against rice, milk, butter, sugar, egg. 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.
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