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Dessert

A Chartreuse of Apples and Rice

A pastry dish of apples and rice baked with cinnamon, milk, and rose or orange‑flower water, topped with egg yolk and sweetmeats.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and apple are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,598 recipes. Both carry methyl cinnamate, which smells strawberry. The science ↓

A Chartreuse of Apples and Rice

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the rice

  1. Cook the rice with the cinnamon in the milk until thick.

  2. Stir in the rose or orange‑flower water.

Prepare the apples

  1. Pare the apples.

  2. Scoop out the cores.

  3. Fill the apples with raspberry jam.

Assemble and bake

  1. Border a deep dish with pastry.

  2. Place the apples inside the pastry border, leaving space between them.

  3. Fill the gaps between apples with rice.

  4. Brush the top with the egg yolk.

  5. Sprinkle sugar thickly over the top.

  6. Create a pattern on top with sweetmeats.

  7. Bake for 1 hour at 400°F (200°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. Cinnamon + appletop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,598 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  4. Apple + raspberrytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together282 recipes

    Shared aroma: damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Cinnamon + milktop 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
Cooked in milk until thick, it forms a creamy filling that sets around the apples.
Milk
Cooks with the rice to make a thick, creamy base for the filling.
Apples
Form the main fruit body, holding their shape and softening as they bake.
Raspberry jam
Fills the cored apples, adding sweetness and fruity flavour as it warms.
Egg yolk
Brushed on top, it promotes golden browning during baking.
Pastry
Forms the border that holds the dish together and gives a crisp edge.

The step that matters

Cooking the rice until thick. Rice must cook long enough in the milk to soften fully and thicken into a stable filling; undercooked grains stay firm and the gaps will not set properly.

Swap the raspberry

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Peachfits better
  4. Raspberrythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, cinnamon, milk, rose, apple, 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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