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Dessert

Apples with Rice in the Shape of a Dome, and Ornamented with a Cup

A dessert of boiled apples and rice shaped into a dome, topped with a cup and apple columns.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and apricot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 777 recipes. Both carry gamma-undecalactone, which smells peach, sweet. The science ↓

Apples with Rice in the Shape of a Dome, and Ornamented with a Cup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the apples

  1. Boil the pippins in clarified sugar until tender.

  2. Cut the large apple in half crosswise.

  3. Shape one half of the large apple into a cup and the other half into a foot.

  4. Cut the two apples into small columns.

  5. Boil the small apple columns with the cup and foot in the syrup until tender.

Make the rice

  1. Prepare rice by boiling it with fine sugar, bitter macaroons, salt, and milk until it thickens.

  2. Add egg yolks to the rice and mix well.

Shape and serve

  1. Butter a fluted semi-circular mold.

  2. Coat the inside of the mold with rice, about 1 inch thick.

  3. Place the boiled apples inside the rice.

  4. Fill the apples with apricot marmalade.

  5. Warm the mold slightly.

  6. Turn the mold onto a serving dish.

  7. Use remaining rice to form a small pedestal on top of the dome.

  8. Arrange the small apple columns upright around the pedestal.

  9. Place the cup on top.

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. Apple + apricottop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together777 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-undecalactone (peach, sweet).

  2. Apple + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,104 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  3. Milk + apricottop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together826 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Sugar + appletop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together16,478 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + apricottop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,630 recipes

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

Sugar and apple barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 16,478 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

Egg yolks
Bind the rice and set into a firm, custard-like structure when warmed.
Milk
Cooks with the rice to give a moist, creamy texture.
Rice (in the method)
Forms the thick outer dome that holds its shape when turned out.
Pippins
Apples poached in syrup, giving tender fruit and a sweet flavour.
Bitter macaroons
Add a bitter almond aroma to the sweetened rice.

The step that matters

Coat the mold with rice to an even thickness. Rice of even thickness sets evenly, so the dome holds its shape when turned out and does not crack or collapse under the fruit filling.

Swap the apricot

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits about as well
  3. Pearfits about as well
  4. Apricotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, apple, milk, egg. 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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