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Dessert

A Good Ground Rice Pudding

A sweet pudding made from ground rice, milk, butter, sugar, eggs, lemon rind, and brandy, baked until set.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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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 ↓

A Good Ground Rice Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

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.

Make the base

  1. In a saucepan, combine 5 ounces of ground rice with ½ pint of milk and bring to a boil over medium heat.

  2. Stir continuously for 10 to 12 minutes to prevent burning.

  3. Add ¼ pound of butter and ¾ cup of sugar, stirring for a few minutes until well mixed.

  4. Gradually mix in the yolks of 2 eggs and the grated rind of 1 lemon.

Bake and serve

  1. Fold in the 2 egg whites until combined.

  2. Pour the mixture into a well-buttered dish and moisten the top with a brush dipped in cold water.

  3. Sprinkle sugar over the top and bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) for about 30 minutes.

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 + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

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

  3. Rice + lemontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,366 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  4. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

  5. Butter + brandytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,127 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Ground rice
Thickens the milk into a starchy base that gives the pudding its body.
Eggs
Egg yolks enrich and set the custard, while whites add lightness when folded in.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, tender mouthfeel to the pudding.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the top brown lightly in the oven.
Milk
Forms the liquid that the ground rice thickens into a creamy base.

The step that matters

Stirring the rice and milk while it cooks. Ground rice settles and scorches on the bottom of the pan if left unstirred, which gives a burnt taste. Constant stirring keeps the starch evenly suspended and gives a smooth, thick base.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rice, milk, butter, sugar, egg, brandy):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, milk, butter, sugar, egg, brandy. 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.

More rice pudding recipes

Baked 88Apple 84with Meringue 40Boiled 38French 30Lemon 29 See all 1,220 →

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