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Rice Cups

Rice cups made from boiled rice, butter, and sugar, served with custard and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Rice Cups

Ingredients

Directions

Make the rice

  1. Boil the rice in very little milk until perfectly dry.

  2. Mash the rice while hot.

  3. Mix in butter and sugar to taste.

Shape and serve

  1. Press the rice into cups, filling them completely.

  2. Once cooled, turn the rice out onto a dish.

  3. Pour custard around the rice cups and serve with cream.

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 + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

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

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  5. Rice + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,645 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Rice
Forms the bulk of the pudding and sets into a firm shape as it cools.
Milk
Provides moisture so the rice can cook until tender.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, giving the rice a softer, smoother texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the rice and the custard.

The step that matters

Boil the rice in very little milk until perfectly dry. Starch in rice absorbs liquid as it cooks and swells. Cooking until the liquid is fully absorbed leaves the rice firm enough to press into cups and hold its shape once cooled.

“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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