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Dessert

Rice Cheese Cake

A baked rice cake with butter, eggs, currants, and a puff pastry base.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Currant and brandy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,057 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Rice Cheese Cake

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.

Make the rice base

  1. In a saucepan, steep the ground rice in milk over medium heat until soft.

  2. Transfer the mixture to an earthen pot and stir in the butter until melted.

  3. Cover the pot and let it sit overnight.

Assemble and bake

  1. The next day, add the currants, beaten eggs, ratafia or brandy, sugar, and nutmeg. Mix well and pour into patty pans lined with puff pastry.

  2. Bake at 350°F (175°C) until set.

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. Currant + brandytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

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

  4. Rice + nutmegtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Milk + nutmegtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,685 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Ground rice
Forms the body of the filling as it softens in milk and thickens the mixture.
Eggs
Set when baked, giving the filling its firm, sliceable structure.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving a smoother, tender texture to the filling.
Milk
Softens the ground rice and provides moisture for a creamy filling.
Currants
Add sweetness and chewy bursts of fruit throughout the filling.

The step that matters

Overnight rest in the covered pot. Resting lets the ground rice fully absorb the milk and butter and soften evenly. Skipping or shortening the rest can leave the base grainy and the filling uneven once eggs are added.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Currantthe original

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