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Dessert

Bavarois of Rice

A chilled dessert of cooked rice, custard, gelatin, and whipped cream, filled with fruit pulp.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Vanilla and apricot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 608 recipes. Both carry 4-methoxybenzaldehyde, which smells sweet, anise. The science ↓

Bavarois of Rice

Ingredients

Directions

Make the rice custard

  1. Stew the rice in 1½ pints of milk and sugar for 30 minutes, adding the vanilla for the first 15 minutes.

  2. Make custard by stirring eggs and ½ pint of milk over heat until thickened.

  3. Dissolve the gelatine and mix it with the custard and rice.

  4. Let the mixture cool but not set.

  5. Fold in the whipped cream.

Mold and set

  1. Pour the mixture into small molds.

  2. Embed the molds in ice.

  3. Once cold, cut out the center with a cutter.

  4. Fill the center with fruit pulp.

  5. Warm the rice cut from the center.

  6. Use the warmed rice to cover the fruit in the molds.

  7. When set, turn out for serving.

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. Vanilla + apricottop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together608 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-methoxybenzaldehyde (sweet, anise).

  2. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

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

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

  4. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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
Thickens the milk as it stews and gives the bavarois its body.
Eggs
Thicken the custard when heated and add richness and structure.
Gelatine
Sets the mixture so it holds its shape when turned out.
Whipped cream
Adds air and richness, giving a lighter, softer texture.
Whole milk
Provides the liquid base for the rice and the custard.

The step that matters

Let the mixture cool but not set. Gelatine begins to gel as it cools, so the mixture must be cool enough to hold the cream without setting before it is folded and poured into molds. If it sets too early, it becomes lumpy and does not blend or fill the molds evenly.

Swap the apricot

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

  1. Coconutfits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Strawberryfits better
  4. Apricotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, milk, sugar, vanilla, egg, cream. 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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