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Dessert

Rice Snowballs

Rice Snowballs are a sweet rice dessert made with milk, sugar, and almonds, shaped into balls and served with preserves.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Rice Snowballs

Why it works: Rice and almond match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,456 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Rice Snowballs

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Blanch and mince the almonds.

  2. Wash and soak the rice overnight.

Cook the rice

  1. In a pan, combine the rice, milk, and sugar.

  2. Boil slowly until the rice is tender and the milk is almost absorbed.

Shape and serve

  1. Fill cups dipped in cold water and drained with the rice mixture.

  2. Turn out when set and serve with preserves, stewed fruit, and 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.

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. Rice + almondtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,456 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

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

  3. Milk + almondtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,800 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Sugar + almondtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,679 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  5. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

Sugar and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Rice
Forms the bulk of the dish and, as it cooks, sets the mixture firm enough to hold its shape.
Milk
Cooks into the rice, adding moisture and a soft, creamy texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps flavour the rice as it simmers in the milk.
Sweet almonds
Add a nutty aroma and a slight texture contrast to the soft rice.

The step that matters

Boil slowly until the rice is tender and the milk is almost absorbed. Rice starch thickens as it absorbs liquid. Boiling too fast can scorch the milk on the pan base or leave the rice unevenly cooked, so the mixture may not set cleanly when shaped.

Swap the almond

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

  1. Peanutfits about as well
  2. Almondthe original
  3. Beansfits about as well
  4. Milletfits about as well

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