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Dessert

Rice Custards

Rice custards are sweet rice cakes set in a milk custard with cinnamon and topped with jam.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and rice 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 ↓

Rice Custards

Ingredients

Directions

Make the rice custards

  1. Sweeten the milk with loaf sugar and boil it with the cinnamon stick.

  2. Stir in sifted ground rice until thick.

  3. Remove from heat and add the beaten egg whites, stirring over low heat for 2-3 minutes.

  4. Pour the mixture into cups that have been soaked in cold water without wiping them.

Turn out and serve

  1. Once cold, turn them out onto a serving dish.

  2. Pour the custard made from the egg yolks and additional milk around the rice custards.

  3. Top with red currant jelly or raspberry jam.

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. Cinnamon + ricetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,137 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  3. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Cinnamon + red curranttop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together93 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Milk
Forms the liquid base that sets into the custard, providing moisture and a soft texture.
Sifted ground rice
Thickens the milk as its starch swells on heating, giving the custard body.
Egg whites
Set on gentle heating to add structure and a light, tender texture to the custard.
Loaf sugar
Sweetens the milk and adds flavour to the custard.

The step that matters

Adding the beaten egg whites. Egg white proteins set at moderate temperatures. Over low heat and with steady stirring they thicken evenly. If the mixture gets too hot or is not stirred, the whites can scramble and turn grainy, spoiling the smooth custard.

Swap the red currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Red currantthe original

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