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Dessert

Cold Desserts

A chilled dessert made from cooked rice, custard, whipped cream, and apricots.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Vanilla and apricot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 608 recipes. Both carry 4-methoxybenzaldehyde, which smells sweet, anise. The science ↓

Cold Desserts

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the components

  1. Flavor the cooked rice with vanilla essence and let it cool.

  2. In a saucepan, combine the egg yolks and milk, stirring over low heat until thickened but not boiling. Let cool.

  3. Prepare the apricots by removing the stones, simmering them in syrup until tender, then drain and cool.

Assemble and set

  1. Mix the cooled custard with the cooled rice.

  2. Whip the cream with powdered sugar until firm, then mix in the dissolved isinglass.

  3. Gently fold the whipped cream into the rice mixture and pour into a mold. Pack in ice.

Serve

  1. To serve, dip the mold in hot water, turn the rice onto a glass dish, and arrange the apricots around it.

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. Vanilla + apricottop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together608 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-methoxybenzaldehyde (sweet, anise).

  2. Vanilla + milktop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  3. Sugar + syruptop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Rice + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,374 recipes

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

  5. Vanilla + sugartop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

Vanilla and sugar 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

Egg yolks
Thicken the milk into a custard that gives the rice its creamy body.
Heavy cream
Whipped to air, it lightens the mixture and adds a soft, moist texture.
Isinglass
A gelatine-like setting agent that firms the mixture so it holds its shape when turned out.
Cooked rice
Forms the bulk of the dessert, giving it body and a soft, starchy texture.

The step that matters

Stirring the custard over low heat. Egg yolks thicken through gentle heat, but if they get too hot they scramble and curdle. Stop heating once it thickens and do not let it boil.

Swap the apricot

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

  1. Coconutfits better
  2. Figfits about as well
  3. Strawberryfits about as well
  4. Apricotthe original

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