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Dessert

Rice Custards

A custard made with cream, mace, nutmeg, rice, brandy, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Mace and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,557 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Rice Custards

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Combine the cream, mace, and nutmeg in a saucepan and boil the mixture.

  2. Strain the cream to remove the spices.

  3. Add the boiled rice and brandy to the cream.

  4. Sweeten to taste and stir over low heat until thickened.

Serve

  1. Serve in cups or a dish, 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. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Nutmeg + ricetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,779 recipes

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

  3. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Cream + nutmegtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,920 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Nutmeg + brandytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,311 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Cream
Provides the rich base that thickens into a smooth, creamy custard.
Whole rice
Adds body and a soft, tender texture to the custard.
Brandy
Adds a warm, aromatic flavour to the custard.

The step that matters

Stir over low heat until thickened. Cream thickens gently when heated slowly; high heat can scorch the bottom or curdle the mixture before it reaches a smooth, set texture.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Clovefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, nutmeg, rice, brandy, 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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