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Drink

Bice Caudle

A warm drink made from milk, flour, sugar, spices, and optional brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Rice and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,137 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Bice Caudle

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Heat 5 tablespoons of fresh milk in a saucepan.

  2. Add 2 pieces of sugar and bring to a boil.

  3. Once boiling, stir in 1 dessert spoonful of fine flour mixed with a little cold water.

  4. Cook over low heat for 20 minutes, stirring constantly.

  5. Mix in grated rice, sugar, lemon peel, and cinnamon for added flavor.

  6. If desired, add 1 glass of brandy and boil until smooth.

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

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

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

  4. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, 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

Milk
Forms the liquid base that the thickened caudle is built on.
Fine flour
Thickens the milk as it cooks, giving the caudle a smooth, body-rich texture.
Grated rice
Adds body and a starchy thickness to the finished caudle.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the flavor of the milk and spices.

The step that matters

Stirring while the flour thickens. Flour mixed into hot milk can clump and scorch on the bottom of the pan if not stirred constantly. Constant stirring over low heat keeps the starch dispersed and the texture smooth.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, sugar, flour, rice, cinnamon, brandy. 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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