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Dessert

Rice Blancmange

Rice Blancmange is a sweet rice pudding made with rice, milk, cinnamon, lemon peel, sugar, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Rice and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,137 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Rice Blancmange

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the rice

  1. Simmer the rice in a small quantity of water until it absorbs the water and is ready to burst.

Make the milk base

  1. Simmer the milk with the cinnamon and lemon peel; strain and sweeten with sugar.

  2. Add the cream to the milk mixture.

Cook and set

  1. Stir the rice into the milk mixture and simmer, stirring continuously until it becomes a mash.

  2. Dip a mold in cold water, then pour the mixture into it.

  3. Once cold, turn it out of the mold.

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 + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,137 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Cinnamon + lemontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

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

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

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

  5. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Whole rice
Breaks down into a mash that thickens the blancmange and gives it body.
Rich milk
Forms the liquid base that sets into a soft, creamy dessert.
Rich cream
Adds fat for a smoother, richer texture and mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Stir the rice into the milk mixture and simmer, stirring continuously. Milk proteins and starch scorch easily on the bottom of the pan, which gives a burnt taste and grainy texture. Constant stirring spreads the heat and keeps the mash smooth.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, milk, cinnamon, sugar, cream. 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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