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Dessert

Ground Rice Cheesecakes

A baked dessert made from ground rice, milk, butter, sugar, lemon, and egg yolks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Rice and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,137 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Ground Rice Cheesecakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the custard

  1. Mix the ground rice smoothly with the milk, then pour in the boiling milk.

  2. Stir the mixture over heat for 3–4 minutes until thickened, adding the butter and sugar rubbed with lemon rind.

  3. Once cooled, stir in the beaten egg yolks and lemon juice.

Fill and bake

  1. Line patty pans with pastry, fill them three-quarters full with the mixture, and bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for about 20 minutes.

  2. Optionally dust with cinnamon or lemon rind before baking.

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Lemon + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  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

Ground rice
Swells in the hot milk and thickens the mixture into a soft, sliceable custard.
Egg yolks
Set during baking to bind the filling and add richness.
Butter
Adds fat for a smooth, rich mouthfeel.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the filling brown lightly.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and balances the sweetness.
Milk
Provides the liquid that the ground rice cooks into a thick custard.

The step that matters

Stir in the egg yolks only once the mixture has cooled. Adding beaten egg yolks to a very hot mixture can cook them unevenly and cause lumps or curdling. Letting the custard cool first keeps the filling smooth and lets the yolks set evenly in the oven.

Swap the lemon

The recipe marks lemon as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rice, milk, butter, sugar, egg, cinnamon):

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

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