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Dessert

Apples and Rice

A sweet dessert of milk‑cooked rice flavored with spices, topped with stewed apples, whipped cream, and jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Apples and Rice

Ingredients

Directions

Make the rice

  1. Steam the rice in a double boiler with salt, milk, and water until soft, adding more liquid if necessary.

  2. Mix in nutmeg, cinnamon, or rose water, and chopped almonds if desired.

  3. Press the cooked rice into a bowl shape.

Cook the apples

  1. Cook the cored and peeled sour apples in a syrup made of equal parts sugar and water until tender.

  2. Carefully remove the apples and place them around the rice, filling the center with them.

  3. Boil the syrup down and pour it around the apples.

Finish and serve

  1. Top each apple with whipped cream and a piece of currant or raspberry jelly.

  2. Serve hot or cold.

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. Nutmeg + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cinnamon + almondtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,514 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Nutmeg + almondtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,115 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Rice + almondtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,456 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Rice
Forms the soft, starchy base that holds the shape of the pudding.
Milk
Adds richness and creaminess as the rice cooks and softens.
Sugar
Sweetens the syrup and helps the apples caramelise slightly as it reduces.
Sour apples
Provide tart acidity that balances the sweetness of the syrup and cream.
Chopped almonds
Add crunch and a nutty flavour to the soft rice.
Whipped cream
Adds cool, rich fat that contrasts with the warm, tart apples.

The step that matters

Boil the syrup down. Reducing the sugar and water concentrates the syrup into a thick sauce. If it is too thin it will run off and soak the rice, and if over-reduced it can turn sticky or burn.

“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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