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Dessert

Rice Custard Ice

A chilled dessert made from cooked rice, milk, sugar, eggs, and fruit, blended into a custard and frozen.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Rice and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,374 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Rice Custard Ice

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the rice and custard base

  1. Gently boil the rice until half done. Drain the rice.

  2. Combine the rice with boiling milk and sugar. Stir well.

  3. Simmer until the rice is fully cooked. Let it cool.

  4. Strain the milk and cream from the rice.

  5. Add enough milk to fill your chosen mold.

  6. Mix in the eggs to create a custard.

Prepare the fruit and meringue

  1. Mince the mixed dessert fruits. Moisten the minced fruit with maraschino or noyau. Set aside.

  2. Heat sugar with a little water until nearly boiling. Whip in the egg whites while mixing continuously until cool.

Churn and freeze

  1. Place the custard in a freezing pail surrounded by ice. Churn until nearly frozen.

  2. Add the nearly frozen rice to the custard.

  3. Add the meringue to the custard.

  4. Add the whipped cream to the custard.

  5. Add the minced fruit to the custard.

  6. Add the liqueur to the custard. Stir well.

  7. Continue to churn until fully frozen.

  8. Fill your ice mold. Bury the mold in ice until ready to serve.

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

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

  2. Apricot + gingertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together341 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

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

  4. Rice + gingertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,196 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Milk + coffeetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,202 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

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

What each ingredient does

Best rice
Forms the body of the custard as it cooks and thickens in the milk.
Eggs
Set when heated, giving the frozen custard its structure and richness.
Egg whites
Whipped into the meringue, adding airy lightness to the frozen dessert.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, tender texture that resists large ice crystals.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and softens the texture of the frozen dessert.

The step that matters

Whip in the egg whites while mixing continuously until cool. Hot sugar syrup must be added slowly to the whites while beating, so the whites cook gently into a stable meringue rather than scrambling or deflating.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Gingerthe original
  4. Peppermintfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, milk, sugar, coffee, cream, egg, apricot. 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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