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Dessert

Rice Cup Puddings

A baked rice pudding served in individual cups, made with milk, cream, butter, eggs, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Tea and rice work together. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 197 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Rice Cup Puddings

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. Pick and wash the rice.

Make the pudding

  1. Boil the rice in 1 quart of milk until very thick and dry.

  2. While hot, add 1 pint of rich milk or cream and 2 ounces of butter.

  3. Allow the mixture to cool slightly, then add 3 beaten eggs and sugar to taste.

Bake and serve

  1. Butter your cups and pour in the mixture.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C).

  3. Grate nutmeg over the top before serving with cream.

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. Tea + ricetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together197 recipes

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

  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. Tea + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together738 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

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

What each ingredient does

Rice
Starch that thickens as it cooks in milk, giving the pudding its body.
Milk
Liquid that the rice absorbs and cooks in, forming the base of the custard.
Eggs
Set when baked, binding the pudding into a firm, sliceable custard.
Butter
Adds fat for a richer mouthfeel and smoother texture.
Rich milk or cream
Adds fat and richness, making the pudding softer and creamier.

The step that matters

Allow the mixture to cool slightly before adding the eggs. If the hot mixture is not cooled a little, the beaten eggs can scramble instead of blending smoothly, and they will not set evenly into a smooth custard when baked.

Swap the nutmeg

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against tea, 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.

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