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Dessert

Apricot Mould

A sweet dessert made by cooking milk with ground rice, apricot jam or pulp, sugar, and cream, then moulding and topping with whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and rice are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,374 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Apricot Mould

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mould

  1. Bring the milk to a boil.

  2. Sprinkle in the ground rice and simmer for about 10 minutes.

  3. Dilute the jam or pulp with 1 tablespoon of hot water and strain it into the stewpan.

  4. Add the sugar and mix well.

  5. Pour the mixture into a wetted border mould and let it set.

Serve

  1. Once set, turn it out and pile stiffly whipped sweetened cream in the center.

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

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

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

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

  3. Milk + apricottop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together826 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Rice + apricottop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together353 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-undecalactone (peach, sweet).

  5. Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Ground rice
Thickens the milk as it simmers, giving the mould its set body.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the ground rice thickens into a set custard.
Apricot jam or pulp
Adds apricot flavour, colour and some sweetness to the mixture.
Castor sugar
Sweetens the mould and adds to its flavour.
Cream
Adds richness and a light, airy texture when whipped.

The step that matters

Sprinkle in the ground rice and simmer. Ground rice must be added gradually and simmered long enough to swell and thicken the milk. Adding it all at once can cause lumps, and insufficient cooking leaves the mould grainy and unable to set firmly.

Swap the apricot

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Strawberryfits better
  4. Apricotthe original

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