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Dessert

Imperial Cream

A chilled dessert made from cooked rice, milk, gelatin, sugar, and whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Imperial Cream

Why it works: Gelatin and cream match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,628 recipes. Both carry acetic acid, which smells sour, vinegar. The science ↓

Imperial Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the rice

  1. Cook the rice in 1 quart of water until boiling, then drain the water.

Make the rice cream

  1. Add the milk to the rice and cook in a double boiler for 2 hours.

  2. Soak the gelatin in ½ cup of water for 2½ hours.

  3. Add the soaked gelatin, flavoring, and sugar to the cooked rice and whip until cold.

  4. Fold in the whipped cream last.

  5. Pour the mixture into a mold and serve with something tart, like strawberries.

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. Gelatin + creamtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,628 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

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

  3. Sugar + gelatintop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,778 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

  5. Milk + creamtop 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

Rice
Forms the thick, starchy body of the dessert as it cooks in milk.
Gelatin
Sets the mixture so it holds its shape when chilled in a mold.
Milk
Provides the liquid base that cooks with the rice into a creamy texture.
Whipped cream
Adds lightness and a smooth, airy texture to the set dessert.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the flavor of the dessert.

The step that matters

Fold in the whipped cream last. Whipped cream is full of trapped air. Folding it gently into the cooled mixture keeps that air, while stirring hard or adding it while the mixture is still warm would deflate it and make the dessert dense.

“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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