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Dessert

Rice Cake, with Almonds

A cake of rice cooked in milk with butter, sugar and ground almonds, baked in a mold and served with apricot jam.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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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 Cake, with Almonds

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Make the rice

  1. Wash the rice and place it in a stewpan with butter, sugar, bitter almonds, sweet almonds, milk, and salt.

  2. Set the mixture to boil gently on a slow stove until the milk is absorbed by the rice.

  3. If the rice is not fully cooked, add a little more milk and continue cooking.

  4. Once the rice is done, mix in the egg yolks and the whipped egg whites.

Bake and serve

  1. Grease a plain mold with butter and sprinkle the shredded almonds inside.

  2. Pour the prepared rice mixture into the mold and bake at 300°F (150°C) for about 1.5 hours.

  3. When done, turn the cake out onto a dish and pour diluted apricot jam around the base before serving.

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

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

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

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

  4. Butter + almondtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

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

  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 cake and absorbs the milk to become soft and creamy.
Egg yolks
Enrich the mixture and help it set firm when baked.
Egg whites
Whipped into the mixture to add lightness and help the cake rise.
Sweet almonds
Add nutty flavour and richness, and body to the batter.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender crumb.
Milk
Cooks into the rice to give moisture and a soft, custardy texture.

The step that matters

Cooking the rice in milk. Rice must be fully tender before the egg is folded in, because it will not soften further in the oven. Cooking slowly keeps the milk from scorching and lets the grains absorb it evenly.

“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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