Skip to main content
Dessert

Apples with Rice

A sweet dessert of rice and apples rolled in buttered cups and dusted with powdered sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Rice and walnut match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 430 recipes. Both carry 2,4-nonadienal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Apples with Rice

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the rice

  1. Cook the rice in boiling salted water until tender, adding more water as needed.

  2. Ensure the water is absorbed and the rice kernels are distinct.

Assemble and finish

  1. Line small buttered cups with the cooked rice.

  2. Fill the centers with slices of apple cooked in sugar and water until tender.

  3. Cover the apple with more rice, rounding the top with walnuts or pecans.

  4. Roll up tightly, then roll again in powdered sugar.

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. Rice + walnuttop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together430 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  2. Rice + appletop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,311 recipes

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

  3. Apple + walnuttop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,051 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Apple + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together16,478 recipes

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

  5. Rice + sugartop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,744 recipes

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

Apple and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 16,478 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 tender outer structure that holds the shape of each pudding.
Apples
Provide moisture and a soft, sweet filling that contrasts with the rice.
Sugar
Sweetens the apple filling and helps it cook to a tender, syrupy texture.
English walnuts or pecan nuts
Add crunch and a nutty flavour to the rounded top.

The step that matters

Ensure the water is absorbed and the rice kernels are distinct. Rice left with excess water turns mushy and will not hold its shape when lined into cups and rolled. Cooking until the water is absorbed and the grains stay separate gives a firm wrapper that holds the filling.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Coconutfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, sugar, walnut. 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.

You might also like

Apple PuddingApple Pudding256 recipesRice CakeRice Cake120 recipesApple CakeApple Cake80 recipesApple MeringueApple Meringue75 recipes