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Dessert

Rice Pudding

A baked rice pudding made with milk, cream, eggs, sugar, cinnamon, lemon peel, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Rice Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA gentle oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a gentle oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Blanch and pick ¼ pound of rice.

Make the pudding

  1. In a stewpan, combine the rice, cinnamon, lemon peel, and boiling milk.

  2. Stew gently, stirring occasionally, until thick.

  3. Remove the cinnamon and lemon peel.

  4. Mix in ½ pint of cream, 6 beaten eggs, sugar to taste, and grated nutmeg.

  5. Pour the mixture into a buttered dish.

Bake

  1. Bake in a gentle oven at 300°F (150°C) 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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Rice + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,137 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Cinnamon + lemontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Rice
Its starch thickens the milk as it stews, giving the pudding its body.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the rice cooks and swells in, adding creaminess.
Eggs
Set when baked, binding the pudding into a soft, sliceable custard.
Cream
Adds richness and fat, giving a smoother, silkier texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the richness of the cream and eggs.

The step that matters

Stew until thick. The rice must cook long enough in the milk to release starch and soften fully; stopping early leaves a thin, grainy pudding, while stirring keeps the milk from scorching on the bottom of the pan.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rice, cinnamon, milk, cream, egg, sugar, nutmeg):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, cinnamon, milk, cream, egg, sugar, nutmeg. 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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