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 ↓
Empress Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare the filling
Gently cook the rice with the lemon peel in the milk until soft.
Let it cool slightly, then mix in the beaten eggs.
Layer and bake
Butter a cake tin and layer the rice mixture, spreading a layer of jam in between.
Repeat layers until the tin is full, finishing with rice on top.
Bake for 30 minutes at 350°F (175°C).
Serve
Turn out and serve with boiled custard, hot or cold.
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.
-
Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
-
Rice + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,374 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
-
Lemon + raspberrytop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,109 recipes
Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
-
Raspberry + curranttop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together366 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl benzoate (fruity, sweet).
-
Rice + lemontop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,366 recipes
Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Rice
- Softens into the pudding body and gives it its bulk and creamy structure.
- Eggs
- Set during baking to bind the rice and milk into a firm, sliceable pudding.
- Milk
- Cooks the rice until tender and provides moisture and creaminess.
- Raspberry jam
- Adds sweetness and fruity flavour between the rice layers.
- Currant jam
- Adds sweetness and tart fruitiness between the rice layers.
The step that matters
Letting the rice cool before adding the eggs. If the rice is too hot, the eggs can scramble instead of blending smoothly, leaving a grainy texture. Cooling slightly keeps the eggs fluid so they mix evenly and set uniformly in the oven.
Swap the currant
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rice, milk, lemon, egg, raspberry, butter):
- Vanillafits better
- Blackberryfits better
- Peachfits better
- Currantthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against rice, milk, lemon, egg, raspberry, butter. 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
You might also like
Currant and Raspberry Ice7 recipes
Lemon Cake228 recipes
Raspberry Jam150 recipes
Lemon Ice147 recipesThe free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.