Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓
Rock Cream
Ingredients
Directions
Make the rice base
Boil the rice in a custard kettle with sweet milk until soft.
Add the sugar and salt, then pour into a dish.
Place lumps of jelly on top.
Make the topping
Beat the egg whites with powdered sugar to a stiff froth.
Flavor to taste, then add the rich cream.
Drop the mixture onto the rice.
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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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together122,807 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Rice + creamtop 23% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together3,399 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).
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Egg + creamtop 24% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together42,166 recipes
Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).
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Rice + sugartop 26% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together8,744 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Egg and cream barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 42,166 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
- Rice
- Cooked until soft, it forms the thick base that the topping sits on.
- Egg whites
- Beaten to a stiff froth, they give the topping its light, airy structure.
- Powdered sugar
- Dissolves easily into the beaten whites, sweetening and helping stabilize the foam.
- Loaf sugar
- Sweetens the rice base so it tastes lightly sweet beneath the topping.
- Rich cream
- Adds moisture and richness to the topping, softening its texture.
The step that matters
Beat the egg whites with powdered sugar to a stiff froth.. Egg whites must be beaten until they hold stiff peaks; under-beaten whites collapse and make the topping heavy, while over-beaten whites turn dry and grainy. Adding the sugar gradually helps the foam stay stable.
“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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