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Dessert

Souffle of Rice and Apple

A baked rice and apple souffle with cinnamon, lemon peel, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and apple are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,598 recipes. Both carry methyl cinnamate, which smells strawberry. The science ↓

Souffle of Rice and Apple

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the rice

  1. Blanch the rice, strain it, and boil it in milk with lemon peel and cinnamon until dry.

  2. Cool the rice and form a 3‑inch rim around a dish, egging it to make it stick.

Assemble and bake

  1. Egg the rice all over and fill the dish halfway with apple marmalade.

  2. Beat the egg whites to a froth and spread them over the marmalade.

  3. Sift fine sugar over the top and bake in a warm oven until golden.

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. Cinnamon + appletop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,598 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Lemon + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

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

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

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

  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

Carolina rice
Forms the structure of the shell and absorbs the milk to become a firm, sturdy wall.
Milk
Cooks into the rice, adding moisture and a soft, creamy texture.
Eggs
Coat the rice so it binds into a rim and browns as it bakes.
Egg whites
Beaten to foam, they trap air and help the top rise and set light.
Marmalade of apples
Adds fruit sweetness, moisture, and flavor to the filling.
Fine sugar
Sweetens the top and promotes golden browning in the oven.

The step that matters

Beat the egg whites to a froth. Egg whites must be beaten until foamy so their proteins trap air. Underbeaten whites lack the foam structure to lift the top, and overbeaten whites turn dry and grainy.

Swap the apple

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

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

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