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Dessert

Apple and Rice Pudding

A baked rice pudding flavored with lemon peel, cinnamon, and sweetened apple sauce, topped with frothy egg whites and powdered sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and apple are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,598 recipes. Both carry methyl cinnamate, which smells strawberry. The science ↓

Apple and Rice Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the rice

  1. Combine rice and milk in a pot and cook until the rice is soft.

  2. Add sugar, lemon peel, and cinnamon to the rice mixture.

  3. Fill a large high mold with the rice mixture.

Bake and assemble

  1. Place the mold in a saucepan of water and bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven for 30 minutes.

  2. Prepare sweetened apple sauce flavored with lemon peel.

  3. Once the rice is done, turn it out onto a dish, creating a hollow center.

  4. Fill the hollow with apple sauce.

  5. Beat the egg whites until frothy and spread over the apple sauce.

  6. Dust with powdered sugar and lightly brown the top before serving.

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 + appletop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,598 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, 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

Rice
Forms the soft, starchy body that holds the shape of the pudding.
Milk
Cooks with the rice to create a creamy, tender texture.
Egg whites
Beaten and spread on top to set and brown into a light, airy topping.
Apple sauce
Adds moisture and fruity sweetness to the hollow center.
Sugar
Sweetens the rice and promotes browning on the top.

The step that matters

Beating the egg whites until frothy. Egg whites need to be beaten enough to trap air so the topping stays light and browns evenly rather than turning dense or runny.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Orangefits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, milk, sugar, lemon, cinnamon, sauce, 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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