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Creams, Custards, &C

A baked custard made with butter, grated bread, rice, and preserved fruit.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Creams, Custards, &C

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the mold

  1. Melt 3½ cups of butter and pour it into a mold, turning it to coat evenly.

  2. Pour the butter out and sprinkle a layer of grated bread inside the mold.

  3. Using a brush or paper, coat the bread with some clarified butter and add more grated bread.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour in 1 cup of rice and bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven for 1 hour.

  2. Turn out onto a dish and serve with or without garnishing of preserved raspberries, cherries, or currants.

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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Bread + ricetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,259 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  3. Butter + ricetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Butter + curranttop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,856 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  5. Bread + curranttop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,398 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Fresh butter
Coats the mold and adds richness and moisture as it bakes into the crust.
Grated bread
Forms a crisp, golden crust that holds the shape of the dish.
Rice
Adds bulk and a tender, soft interior texture when baked.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, bread, rice):

  1. Coconutfits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Peachfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, bread, rice. 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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