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 ↓
Rice Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare the rice
Wash the rice and place it in a pie dish.
Cover the rice with cold water and bake at 400°F (200°C) until nearly soft.
Add the custard and bake
Beat the egg with the milk and mix in cinnamon or other flavoring.
Pour the egg mixture over the rice and add sugar to taste.
Bake until set.
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.
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Rice + cinnamontop 4% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together2,137 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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Rice + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,374 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together12,655 recipes
Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).
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Cinnamon + sugartop 10% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together30,779 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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Egg + milktop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together88,785 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Cinnamon and sugar 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
- Rice
- Forms the body of the pudding and absorbs liquid as it softens in the oven.
- Egg
- Sets the milk mixture into a custard that holds the pudding together.
- Milk
- Provides the liquid base that becomes the creamy custard around the rice.
The step that matters
Bake until set. Egg proteins coagulate as the custard heats, so the pudding must be baked long enough to firm up. Underbaking leaves it runny, while overbaking can make the egg curdle and turn grainy.
“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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