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Dessert

Baked Ground Rice Pudding

A baked pudding made from ground rice, milk, egg, sugar, nutmeg, and butter.

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 ↓

Baked Ground Rice 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. Mix the ground rice with a little of the cold milk.

Make the custard

  1. Boil the rest of the milk and pour it over the rice, stirring carefully.

  2. Place the mixture over the heat and stir until it boils.

  3. Add the butter, then let it cool before mixing in the egg and nutmeg.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into a buttered dish and bake for 1 hour at 300°F (150°C).

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

Ground rice
Thickens the milk as it heats, giving the pudding its body and creamy texture.
Egg
Sets during baking, giving the pudding structure and a richer, custard-like texture.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the rice thickens and the egg sets into a custard.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth, tender mouthfeel.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the flavour of the milk and egg.

The step that matters

Let the mixture cool before adding the egg. Adding egg to a very hot mixture can scramble it into lumps instead of blending smoothly. Cooling slightly lets the egg mix in evenly so it sets into a smooth custard in the oven.

Swap the nutmeg

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

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

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