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Dessert

Apples with Rice

A baked rice pudding with apples, butter, cinnamon, and lemon peel.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and cinnamon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,598 recipes. Both carry methyl cinnamate, which smells strawberry. The science ↓

Apples with Rice

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the rice base

  1. In a pot, combine rice, milk, butter, and sugar; boil until rice is soft.

  2. Mix egg yolks with the rice mixture.

  3. Beat egg whites with ½ pound sugar and fold into the rice mixture.

Prepare the apples

  1. Core the apples and stew them with a little butter, cinnamon, and lemon peel.

Bake and serve

  1. Transfer the mixture into baking dishes.

  2. Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C).

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. Apple + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,598 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  4. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Rice
Cooks into a soft body that gives the pudding its bulk and creamy texture.
Milk
Provides the liquid that the rice absorbs and cooks in, forming the custard base.
Egg yolks
Enrich the mixture and help it set into a custard-like texture when baked.
Egg whites
Whipped with sugar and folded in, they add lightness and help the pudding rise.
Apples
Add moisture, tartness and fruity flavor that contrasts with the sweet rice.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. Overmixing or deflating the whites loses the air that gives the pudding lift. Fold gently so the whites stay airy through baking.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rice, milk, butter, sugar, egg, apple, cinnamon):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Peachfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

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