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Dessert

Rice Jelly

Rice jelly is a thick, transparent dessert made from rice flour, sugar, water, and flavored with rose or orange flower water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Rice Jelly

Why it works: Flour and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 92,116 recipes. Both carry phenylacetaldehyde, which smells hawthorne, honey. The science ↓

Rice Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Boil the rice flour and loaf sugar in water until thick and transparent.

  2. Flavor with rose or orange flower water.

  3. Alternatively, boil whole rice in a small quantity of water until it resembles cream.

  4. Cool to allow it to set into a jelly.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  2. Rice + flourtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Rice + rosetop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together245 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Sugar + rosetop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,584 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Rice + sugartop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,744 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Rice flour
Its starch thickens and turns clear when boiled, giving the jelly its body.
Loaf sugar
Sweetens the jelly and helps it hold its clear, firm texture as it cools.
Rose or orange flower water
Adds a floral aroma that flavors the finished jelly.

The step that matters

Boil until thick and transparent. The starch in the rice flour must be fully cooked to thicken and turn clear. Underheated starch leaves the mixture cloudy, with a raw taste and a weak set as it cools.

“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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