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Dessert

Cheese-cakes

A baked dessert made from rice, milk, butter, sugar, eggs, salt, currants, and pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Cheese-cakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA gentle oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a gentle oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the filling

  1. Boil the rice in the milk for 15 minutes.

  2. Remove from heat and let cool slightly.

  3. Add melted butter, sugar, eggs, and salt to the rice mixture.

Fill and bake

  1. Line large patty pans or saucers with thin pastry.

  2. Fill the lined pans three-quarters full with the mixture.

  3. Strew currants on top or mix them in.

  4. Bake in a gentle oven at 350°F (175°C) for 15 to 20 minutes.

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

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

  4. Milk + curranttop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,475 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  5. Butter + curranttop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,856 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

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

What each ingredient does

Rice
Forms the body of the filling and absorbs the milk as it cooks.
Milk
Cooks with the rice to create a soft, creamy base for the filling.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving the filling a tender texture.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and set during baking to hold the filling together.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and aids browning on the surface.

The step that matters

Let the rice mixture cool slightly before adding the eggs. Eggs added to a very hot mixture can scramble rather than blend smoothly. Cooling slightly lets the eggs mix in evenly and set into a uniform filling during baking.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Currantthe original

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