Skip to main content
Dessert

Apples and Rice

A dessert of steamed rice served with boiled apples, syrup, whipped cream, and jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Apples and Rice

Ingredients

Directions

Make the rice

  1. Steam the rice in a double boiler with salt, milk, and water until soft, adding more liquid if necessary.

  2. Once the rice is soft and has absorbed the liquid, press it into the shape of a bowl.

Cook the apples

  1. In a separate pot, cook the apples in a syrup made of equal parts sugar and water until tender.

  2. Carefully remove the apples and place them around the rice, filling the center with them.

  3. Boil the syrup down and pour it around the apples.

Finish and serve

  1. Fill each apple with whipped cream and top with a piece of jelly.

  2. Serve hot or cold.

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. Nutmeg + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cinnamon + almondtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,514 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Nutmeg + almondtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,115 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Rice + almondtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,456 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Rice
Softens into a starchy base that holds its shape when pressed into a bowl.
Milk
Adds richness and creaminess as it cooks into the rice.
Sugar
Sweetens the syrup and helps the apples turn tender and glossy.
Sour apples
Provide tart contrast to the sweet rice and hold their shape when cooked.
Whipped cream
Adds fat and a light, cool texture that softens the tart apples.

The step that matters

Press the rice while it is still warm. Rice firms and sets as it cools, so pressing it into a bowl shape must happen once it has fully softened and absorbed the liquid, before it stiffens and cracks.

“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.

You might also like

Apple PuddingApple Pudding256 recipesRice CakeRice Cake120 recipesApple CakeApple Cake80 recipesApple MeringueApple Meringue75 recipes