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Dessert

Rice Cups

Rice cups are mashed rice pressed into cups, served with custard and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Rice Cups

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the rice

  1. Boil the rice in very little milk until perfectly dry.

  2. Mash the rice finely while hot, then add butter and sugar to taste.

Shape and serve

  1. Press the rice into cups, filling them completely.

  2. Once cold, turn the rice out onto a dish.

  3. Pour custard around the rice and serve with cream.

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

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

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

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

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  5. Rice + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Rice
Its starch swells and sets as it cools, giving the pudding its body and shape.
Milk
Cooks into the rice, softening it and adding moisture and richness.
Butter
Adds fat for a smoother, richer texture and a rounder flavor.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to balance the mild, starchy rice.

The step that matters

Turn the rice out only once cold. As the rice cools, its starch sets and firms up. Turning it out while still warm can cause it to slump or lose its cup shape.

“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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