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To Make Rice Caudle

Rice Caudle is a thickened rice dish cooked in boiling water and finished with sugar, cinnamon, and brandy or white wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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To Make Rice Caudle

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 ↓

To Make Rice Caudle

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Bring some water to a boil in a saucepan.

  2. Mix a small amount of ground rice with cold water.

  3. Add the rice mixture to the boiling water.

  4. Cook until thickened.

  5. Transfer to a bowl.

  6. Stir in sugar, pounded cinnamon, and brandy or white wine.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Cinnamon + brandytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,199 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  4. Sugar + brandytop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,939 recipes

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

  5. Rice + brandytop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together378 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Ground rice
Thickens the liquid as its starch gelatinises when heated, giving the caudle body.
Brandy or white wine
Adds acidity and aroma, lightly flavouring the thickened caudle.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the warm, spiced liquid.

The step that matters

Add the rice mixture to the boiling water. The ground rice must be fully suspended in cold water before it meets the boiling liquid; otherwise it clumps. Stirring as it goes lets the starch disperse and thicken 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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