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Dessert

Rice Cream

A chilled gelatin dessert made with rice, milk, lemon rind, whipped cream, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Rice Cream

Why it works: Rice and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,374 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Rice Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the rice base

  1. Boil the rice in plenty of water for 10 minutes, then drain.

  2. Add 1 cup of milk and cook in a double boiler for 45 minutes with the lemon rind for flavor.

  3. Remove the lemon peel, then add the soaked gelatine, sugar, and salt.

Chill and set

  1. Place the mixture in a pan of cold water and stir until thoroughly chilled.

  2. Gently fold in the whipped cream without breaking the froth.

  3. Pour into small cups or a large mold and refrigerate until firm.

Serve

  1. Serve with strawberries and whipped cream or orange jelly.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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

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

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

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

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

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

  4. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

  5. Cream + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Whipped cream
Adds airy lightness and richness, with its froth giving the dessert a soft texture.
Raw rice
Cooks down with the milk to give the base body and a starchy, creamy thickness.
Gelatine
Sets the mixture so it holds its shape when chilled and unmolded.
Milk
Provides the liquid that cooks the rice into a smooth, creamy base.

The step that matters

Gently fold in the whipped cream. Whipped cream is a foam of trapped air. Vigorous stirring collapses the bubbles, making the dessert dense instead of light. Fold slowly, and only after the mixture has chilled enough to thicken, so the cream does not melt or deflate.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, rice, milk, 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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