Name: Rice Toad-in-the-hole
Ingredients: 4 pounds rice; 1 ounce salt; 2 pounds sugar; 4 ounces cinnamon; 2 quarts milk; 22 apples

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 ↓

Rice Toad-in-the-hole

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare and layer

Prepare the rice as you would for Baked Rice Pudding.
Place the rice in a baking dish.
Peel and slice the apples, then layer them over the rice.
Sift sugar and cinnamon over the apples.

Bake

Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until cooked through.

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.

Cinnamon + appletop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,598 recipes

Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).
Rice + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,137 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Rice + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,374 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Cinnamon + milktop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,655 recipes

Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).
Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together30,779 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Rice: Forms the bulk of the dish and sets as it bakes, giving it a pudding-like body.
Apples: Release moisture as they cook and add a tart, fruity flavour to the dish.
Sugar: Adds sweetness and helps the top brown in the oven.
Cinnamon: Adds warm aroma and spiced flavour to the apples and rice.

Flavor stand-ins for the apple

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

Vanillabetter flavor fit
Raisinbetter flavor fit
Coconutbetter flavor fit
Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, sugar, cinnamon, milk. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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.