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Dessert

Cold Sweet Entremets

A chilled dessert made from milk, cream, ground rice, sugar, gelatin, vanilla, cherries, pistachios, and angelica.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pistachio and nuts match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 425 recipes. Both carry alpha-pinene, which smells pine, turpentine. The science ↓

Cold Sweet Entremets

Ingredients

Directions

Make the rice cream

  1. Boil the milk.

  2. Stir in the ground rice.

  3. Cook gently for about 15 minutes.

  4. Dissolve the gelatin in a little milk or water.

  5. Strain it into the rice cream.

  6. Stir in the sugar and vanilla essence.

  7. Let it cool slightly.

  8. Add diced glace cherries and chopped pistachios.

Finish and set

  1. Whip the cream.

  2. Gently fold it into the mixture.

  3. Prepare a fancy border or jelly mould.

  4. Mask it with jelly.

  5. Pour the prepared mixture into the mould.

  6. Place it in a cool area to set.

  7. Decorate with glace cherries, pistachios, and angelica.

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. Pistachio + nutstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together425 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  2. Angelica + pistachiotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together36 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  3. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  4. Vanilla + angelicatop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together170 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  5. Milk + ricetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,374 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Milk
Forms the base of the rice cream, giving it body and a soft, creamy liquid structure.
Cream
Whipped and folded in to add lightness, richness and a smooth, airy texture.
Ground rice
Thickens the milk as it cooks gently, giving the dessert its body.
Leaf gelatine
Sets the mixture so it holds its shape when chilled and unmoulded.
Caster sugar
Sweetens the dessert and adds to its smooth, soft texture.

The step that matters

Folding in the whipped cream. Whipped cream holds air that gives lightness. Folding gently keeps that air in; stirring vigorously deflates it and leaves a heavier, denser set dessert.

Swap the angelica

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Angelicathe original
  4. Peppermintfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, cream, rice, sugar, vanilla, pistachio, nuts. 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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