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Dessert

Iced Rice Pudding, a LA Centra

A chilled rice custard made with Carolina rice, milk, cream, vanilla, sugar, salt, and egg yolks.

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 ↓

Iced Rice Pudding, a LA Centra

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the rice

  1. Wash and parboil the rice.

Make the custard

  1. In a saucepan, combine rice, milk, cream, vanilla, sugar, and salt.

  2. Simmer gently until the rice is almost dissolved, stirring occasionally.

  3. While still boiling, add the egg yolks and stir for several minutes to mix well.

Freeze

  1. Freeze the rice custard in a mold, then cover and immerse in ice until set.

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. Vanilla + sugartop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Vanilla and sugar 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

Carolina rice
Provides the body of the pudding as it softens and breaks down during simmering.
Milk
Supplies liquid that cooks the rice and forms the creamy base.
Cream
Adds fat, which makes the pudding smoother and richer in mouthfeel.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and lowers its freezing point, keeping the frozen texture softer.
Egg yolks
Thicken the custard and add richness through their proteins and fat.

The step that matters

Adding the egg yolks while the mixture is still boiling. Egg yolks thicken by coagulating with heat, but if they are added too quickly or stirred too little they can scramble or unevenly thicken. Stirring them in steadily ensures a smooth, evenly set custard.

“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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