Name: Delicious Rice Dessert
Ingredients: ½ cup boiled rice; 1 pint boiled custard; 1 cup preserved strawberries; whipped cream

Why it works: Rice and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 23% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,399 recipes. Both carry 2-nonanone, which smells fruity, floral. The science ↓

Delicious Rice Dessert

Ingredients

½ cup boiled rice
1 pint boiled custard
1 cup preserved strawberries
whipped cream

Directions

In a dessert dish, layer the ingredients starting with the rice.
Pour the custard over the rice.
Top with the preserved strawberries.
Cover the entire dish with 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.

Rice + creamtop 23% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3,399 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

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

What each ingredient does

Boiled rice: Forms the soft, starchy base layer that holds the custard.
Boiled custard: Adds moisture and creamy richness that soaks into the rice.
Preserved strawberries: Adds sweetness and fruity acidity to balance the rich custard.
Whipped cream: Adds fat and a light, airy topping that softens the flavour.

“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.