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Dessert

Rice Mould

Rice Mould is a molded rice dessert made with rice, cinnamon, bay leaf or lemon rind, water, cream or milk, and sweetened with sugar.

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

Rice Mould

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the rice

  1. Wash and drain the rice.

  2. Combine the rice, cinnamon, bay leaf (or lemon rind), and cold water in a saucepan.

  3. Bring the mixture to a boil, then add the cream or milk.

  4. Simmer gently until the rice is soft.

  5. Remove the flavoring ingredients.

  6. Sweeten the rice with sugar to taste.

  7. Beat the rice well for 3–4 minutes.

Mould and serve

  1. Press the rice into a damp mold and let it cool and stiffen.

  2. Turn out the rice from the mold.

  3. Garnish the rice with preserved fruit or jelly.

  4. Pour thin custard around the rice.

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. Cinnamon + lemontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

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

  3. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  4. Cinnamon + sugartop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Rice + lemontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,366 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

Cinnamon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Carolina rice
Starch that softens in liquid and thickens into a firm, sliceable mould as it cools.
Cream or milk
Adds richness and moisture, giving the rice a soft, creamy texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the rice and balances the flavour of the cinnamon and citrus.

The step that matters

Simmer gently until the rice is soft. Rice cooked too hard can stay grainy, while rapid boiling can scorch the milk or cream on the pan base. Gentle heat lets the grains absorb liquid evenly and soften while the dairy stays smooth.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, cinnamon, cream, sugar. 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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