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Dessert

Rice Souffle

A sweet rice soufflé made with milk, butter, sugar, eggs, and vanilla or lemon.

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 ↓

Rice Souffle

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the rice base

  1. In a saucepan, stew the rice in the milk with the butter, sugar, and lemon peel if using for flavoring until the rice is tender.

  2. Remove the lemon peel or add vanilla essence and let the mixture cool.

  3. Separate the yolks from the whites of the eggs and beat each separately into the cooled rice for 2 to 3 minutes.

Add the whites and bake

  1. Whip the egg whites to a stiff froth and gently fold them into the rice mixture.

  2. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C) and butter a souffle tin.

  3. Pour the mixture into the prepared tin and bake for 20 minutes.

  4. Sprinkle with caster sugar and serve immediately.

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

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

  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

Eggs
Yolks enrich and set the base, while whipped whites lift the soufflé with trapped air.
Rice
Cooked until tender in the milk, it forms the thick body that holds the soufflé together.
Milk
Cooks with the rice to create a creamy base that gives the soufflé moisture and softness.
Butter
Adds richness and fat to the base and greases the tin so the soufflé releases cleanly.
Sugar
Sweetens the base and adds flavor to the rice mixture.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Whites must be whipped to a stiff froth and folded gently so the air bubbles stay trapped. Overmixing deflates them, and the soufflé will rise less and turn dense.

“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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