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Dessert

Rice Pudding, Without Eggs

A sweet rice pudding made with rice, sugar, butter, raisins, milk, and nutmeg, baked until set.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Raisin and nutmeg 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 ↓

Rice Pudding, Without Eggs

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.

Make the mixture

  1. Combine rice, sugar, butter, raisins, and milk in a large pot, then add nutmeg to taste.

  2. Let the mixture stand on a warm stove for 2 hours.

Bake

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Transfer the mixture to a baking dish and bake for 1 hour.

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. Raisin + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

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

  2. Butter + milktop 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 absorbs milk and softens, giving the pudding its body and texture.
Milk
Provides the liquid that thickens and sets into a creamy base as it bakes.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the top brown in the oven.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smoother, softer mouthfeel.
Raisins
Add concentrated sweetness and chewy pockets throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Standing on the warm stove. Milk scorches easily on the bottom of a pot, and its proteins and sugars can stick and burn. Keeping the heat gentle and stirring helps the rice soak up liquid evenly before baking.

Swap the raisin

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

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

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

More rice pudding recipes

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