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Dessert

Rich Charlotte

A layered dessert of cooked rice in milk, sugar, and vanilla, folded with whipped cream and set with preserves.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Rich Charlotte

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the rice

  1. Blanch the rice.

  2. Boil the rice in the milk with sugar and vanilla until soft.

  3. Let the rice cool.

Assemble and set

  1. Mix the cooled rice with the whipped cream.

  2. Oil a mold.

  3. Fill the mold with alternating layers of rice and preserves or marmalade.

  4. Let it stand until stiff.

  5. Turn it out of the mold.

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

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

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

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

  3. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  5. Rice + vanillatop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,352 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Rice
Its starch thickens as it cooks and cools, giving the dessert its body and setting structure.
Milk
Cooks into the rice as a liquid base, making it soft and creamy.
Whipped cream
Adds air and richness, lightening the set rice into a tender texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the rice as it cooks in the milk.
Preserves or marmalade
Adds sweetness and fruit flavor between the rice layers.

The step that matters

Let the rice cool.. Warm rice melts and deflates the whipped cream when folded in, so the mixture won't hold its shape. Cooling first keeps the cream airy enough to set firm.

“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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