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Rice Plum Pudding

A baked rice pudding flavored with cinnamon and raisins.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and raisin are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,390 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Rice Plum Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Wash and soak the rice overnight, then drain.

  2. Place the rice in a buttered pudding dish.

Make and bake

  1. Add the milk, salt, sugar, butter, and cinnamon to the dish.

  2. Stir in the raisins last.

  3. Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) for 2 hours.

  4. Stir thoroughly 4 or 5 times during the first hour to prevent settling.

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. Cinnamon + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  2. Rice + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,137 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

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

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

  5. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Rice
Starch that thickens the milk and gives the pudding its body as it bakes.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the rice cooks in, becoming creamy and custard-like.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the pudding brown slightly at the surface.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smoother, softer texture.
Stoned raisins
Add pockets of sweetness and chewy texture throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Stirring during the first hour. Rice is heavier than the milk and sinks, so the pudding can separate and settle. Stirring several times early keeps the rice suspended so it cooks evenly and the texture stays uniform.

Swap the raisin

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

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

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