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Dessert

Apple and Rice Pudding

A baked pudding of rice, apples, eggs, sugar, butter, and lemon flavoring.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Rice and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,366 recipes. Both carry (e,e)-2,4-decadienal, which smells fatty, deep fried. The science ↓

Apple and Rice Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Boil the rice in milk or water until tender.

  2. Stew the apples, then mash them.

  3. Mix the mashed apples with the rice or layer them alternately.

  4. Add the beaten egg yolks, sugar, butter, and lemon flavoring.

Bake and finish

  1. Pour the mixture into a pie dish and bake.

  2. Whip the egg whites until stiff, adding sugar and flavoring.

  3. Spread the meringue on top and return to the oven to set.

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 + lemontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,366 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  2. Rice + appletop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,311 recipes

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

  3. Apple + lemontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,551 recipes

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

  4. Apple + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,706 recipes

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

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

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

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 pudding, giving it a soft, starchy bulk.
Eggs
Egg yolks enrich and set the custard, while whites whip into a stable meringue.
Apples
Add moisture and fruity sweetness to the pudding.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smoother, tender texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and helps stabilize the whipped egg white meringue.

The step that matters

Whip the egg whites until stiff. Egg whites must be beaten to a stable foam before the sugar is added and the meringue is spread on top. Under-whipped whites collapse in the oven, and fat or yolk residue in the bowl prevents them from reaching full volume.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Orangefits better
  4. Applethe original

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