Why it works: Rice and almond match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,456 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓
Snow Rice Cream
Ingredients
Directions
Make the rice base
Combine the ground rice, sugar, essence, and butter in a stewpan.
Add the milk and boil for 15–20 minutes until smooth but not too thick.
Pour into buttered molds and let cool until set.
Make the snow
For the snow, pour cold water over the gelatin and let it stand for 20 minutes.
Add boiling water to the gelatin and stir until dissolved, then let cool without congealing.
Beat the egg whites until light, then mix in the pounded sugar.
Pour in the cooled gelatin and beat everything together for 45 minutes.
Transfer to molds and serve with slip or custard.
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.
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Rice + almondtop 6% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together1,456 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Rice + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,374 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Almond + buttertop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together9,245 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).
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Rice + buttertop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together9,645 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Ground rice
- Thickens the milk into a smooth, set pudding base.
- Egg whites
- Whipped to a light foam that gives the snow its airy texture.
- Gelatine
- Sets the whipped snow so it holds its shape in the molds.
- Milk
- Forms the liquid base that the ground rice cooks into a pudding.
- Butter
- Adds richness and a soft, fatty mouthfeel to the pudding.
The step that matters
Cooling the gelatine without congealing. If the dissolved gelatine cools too far it begins to set before it is beaten in, so the snow will not whip into an even, light foam. It should stay liquid and only just cool before being combined with the egg whites.
“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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