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Dessert

Rice Pudding

A baked rice pudding made with Carolina rice, cold milk, butter, eggs, powdered sugar, and nutmeg.

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 ↓

Rice Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the rice

  1. Wash the rice in one or two waters, then drain and dry it on a cloth.

Make the pudding

  1. Put the rice in a stewpan with the cold milk and butter.

  2. Simmer gently over moderate heat until the rice is tender.

  3. Add the whipped eggs, sugar, and nutmeg, then mix well.

  4. Pour the mixture into a buttered pudding dish.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until set and nicely colored.

  2. Serve hot.

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 + nutmegtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Milk + nutmegtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,685 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Rice + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Carolina rice
Its starch swells and softens during simmering, giving the pudding its body.
Milk
Cooks with the rice to form a creamy liquid that keeps the grains moist.
Butter
Adds fat, which gives the pudding a rich mouthfeel and softer texture.
Eggs
Set when baked, binding the pudding and giving it structure and a custard-like firmness.
Powdered sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the browning develop on the surface during baking.

The step that matters

Bake until set and nicely colored. Eggs set as their proteins coagulate with heat. Pulling the pudding too early leaves it runny, while overbaking can make it dry and rubbery.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Turmericfits less well
  4. Gingerfits less well

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