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Dessert

Modern Cookery

A baked rice pudding flavored with lemon, butter, and sugar, topped with preserved fruit or compote.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Modern Cookery

Oven, in the book's wordsA brisk oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a brisk oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Cook the rice

  1. Scrape sugar rubbed on a fresh lemon into the rice before removing it from the fire.

Mold and cool

  1. Butter a decorative tin mold.

  2. Press the hot rice into the mold, smoothing the surface.

  3. Let the rice cool in the mold.

  4. If the mold opens at the ends, it will release easily. Otherwise, dip the mold in hot water to loosen.

  5. Turn out the rice onto a dish.

Bake and fill

  1. Mark a rim about 1 inch wide with a knife.

  2. Brush clarified butter over the pudding.

  3. Place the pudding in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C). Bake until it is a light golden brown.

  4. Carefully lift the cover where marked.

  5. Scoop out the rice, leaving a 1-inch thick crust.

  6. Fill the crust with warmed preserved fruit, compote, or smooth apple marmalade.

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 + plumtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together406 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Lemon + plumtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together623 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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, setting firm as it cools in the mold.
Milk
Cooks with the rice to create a creamy, tender texture.
Fresh butter
Adds richness and helps the surface brown in the oven.
Pounded sugar
Sweetens the pudding and contributes to golden browning in the oven.
Lemon rind
Adds bright aromatic flavour to the rice.

The step that matters

Dip the mold in hot water to loosen, if needed. Rice sticks to the metal as it cools. Brief warming loosens the surface so the pudding releases whole instead of tearing when turned out.

Swap the plum

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

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

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

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