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Dessert

Baked Rice Pudding

A baked pudding made from soaked rice, milk, eggs, sugar, butter, and nutmeg, topped with meringue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and raisin are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,377 recipes. Both carry alpha-terpineol, which smells lilac, floral. The science ↓

Baked Rice Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Soak the rice in 1 cup of milk overnight.

  2. In the morning, add 1 cup of milk and heat slowly on the stove until scalding hot.

Mix and bake

  1. Remove from heat and stir in the beaten egg yolks, sugar, butter, and nutmeg.

  2. Bake until the pudding is set, avoiding separation of whey.

Top and serve

  1. Top with meringue made from the egg whites.

  2. Serve cold or warm, with optional raisins.

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. Nutmeg + raisintop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

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

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

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

  5. Rice + raisintop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together565 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Rice
Starch that soaks up liquid and gives the pudding body and a tender bite.
Milk
Liquid base that becomes the creamy body of the pudding when set with egg.
Egg yolks
Proteins set with gentle heat to thicken the pudding and add richness.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the richness of the eggs and butter.
Butter
Adds fat for a smoother mouthfeel and a richer flavour.

The step that matters

Bake until the pudding is set, avoiding separation of whey.. Egg proteins set as they heat, forming a custard. Baking too long or too hot tightens them further, squeezing out liquid whey and leaving the pudding weeping or grainy.

Swap the raisin

The recipe marks raisin as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rice, milk, egg, sugar, butter, nutmeg):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Raisinthe original

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

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