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Dessert

Rice Cake, with Almonds

A baked rice cake flavored with butter, sugar, bitter and sweet almonds, milk, eggs, and topped 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.

Make the rice mixture

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

  2. Cook gently on a low heat until the rice absorbs the milk, adding more milk if necessary.

  3. Once the rice is cooked, mix in the egg yolks and whipped egg whites.

Bake and serve

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

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

  3. Once 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 bulk of the cake and sets into a tender, creamy structure as it absorbs the milk.
Eggs
Yolks enrich and bind the mixture, while whipped whites add lightness and help it set when baked.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving the cake a tender, moist crumb and greasing the mold.
Sweet almonds
Contribute body, nutty flavour and moisture to the rice mixture.
Milk
Hydrates the rice as it cooks, creating a soft, pudding-like base for the cake.

The step that matters

Cooking the rice until it absorbs the milk. Rice must be cooked gently and long enough to soften fully and absorb the liquid. Undercooked grains stay firm after baking, while scorching on high heat can stick and burn the milk.

“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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