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Dessert

Apple and Rice

A baked dessert of rice, milk, butter, sugar, cinnamon, salt, apple, and egg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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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 ↓

Apple and Rice

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

  1. Boil the rice in milk until tender.

  2. Add butter, sugar, cinnamon, and salt to the rice.

Prepare the apple

  1. Peel and core the apple.

  2. Place the peeled and cored apple in a saucepan with a little sugar and cook until tender.

  3. Place the cooked apple in a small tart dish.

Bake

  1. Mix the egg with the rice and pour it over the apple.

  2. Bake for 10 minutes at 350°F (175°C).

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. Cinnamon + appletop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,598 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  2. Rice + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,137 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

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

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

  5. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Rice
Provides the bulk and starch that thickens the pudding as it cooks in milk.
Milk
Cooks with the rice to form the creamy base of the pudding.
Egg
Sets the rice mixture during baking, giving it a custard-like firmness.
Apple
Adds fruit flavour and moisture that softens as it cooks.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, fatty mouthfeel to the rice.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and softens the apple as it cooks.

The step that matters

Mix the egg with the rice. Egg proteins set when heated, so the rice mixture should be cooled slightly before adding the egg. Adding hot rice too quickly can scramble the egg, while a properly combined mixture bakes into a smooth, set custard.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, milk, butter, sugar, cinnamon, 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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