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Dessert

Rice Popple

Rice Popple is a baked rice pudding with cherries, butter, and egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Rice and corn match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 933 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Rice Popple

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Wash the rice.

  2. Add the rice to a pot with the milk, sugar, and butter.

  3. Mix the corn-starch with a little milk to dissolve it, then add to the pot.

  4. Add your desired flavoring.

Bake

  1. Bake at 350 °F (175 °C) for 1.5 hours, stirring occasionally until thickened. Let it brown.

  2. Remove from the oven and cool, then remove the brown skin.

Top and finish

  1. Top with preserved cherries.

  2. Beat the egg whites to stiff peaks.

  3. Spread the egg whites over the cherries irregularly.

  4. Sprinkle with pulverized sugar.

  5. Return to the oven to brown.

  6. Serve with lemon sauce, cream sauce, or whipped 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. Rice + corntop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together933 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  4. Milk + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  5. Corn + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,345 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Rice
Its starch softens and absorbs milk, giving the pudding its body.
Milk
Provides the liquid that cooks into a creamy, tender base.
Corn-starch
Thickens the liquid as it heats so the pudding sets firm.
Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks, they form an airy topping that browns in the oven.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the topping brown.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a softer mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Return to the oven to brown. The sugar and egg white topping browns quickly at high heat, so it can scorch or turn rubbery if left in too long. Watch it closely and remove it once golden.

“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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