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Dessert

Rice Souffle

A baked rice dessert made with milk, eggs, sugar, and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the rice

  1. Cook the rice in boiling salted water for 15 to 20 minutes.

  2. Drain the rice.

Make the base

  1. Place the rice in a double boiler with the milk.

  2. Cook the mixture for 10 minutes.

  3. Add the beaten egg yolks, powdered sugar, and butter.

  4. Cook the mixture for 5 minutes.

  5. Let the mixture cool.

  6. Stir in the vanilla.

Bake and serve

  1. Beat the egg whites until stiff.

  2. Gently fold the beaten egg whites into the mixture.

  3. Bake in a well-buttered pudding dish for 30 minutes.

  4. Serve immediately with creamy sauce.

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

Rice
Forms the body of the souffle, giving it a soft, starchy base.
Milk
Adds moisture and richness, cooking with the rice into a thick custard-like base.
Egg yolks
Enrich the base and help it set as it cooks and bakes.
Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks, they trap air that lifts the souffle as it bakes.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the base and dissolves smoothly into the warm mixture.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Stiff whites hold the air that makes a souffle rise. Folding gently keeps that air in; stirring or deflating the whites makes the souffle heavy and flat.

“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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