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Rice Journey, or Johnny Cake

A baked rice cake made with rice, butter, rice flour, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk 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 Journey, or Johnny Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Make the rice mixture

  1. Boil the rice with salt until soft.

  2. Mix in the butter while the rice is hot.

  3. Spread the mixture on a dish to cool.

  4. Once cold, add the rice flour and milk. Beat until well combined.

Shape and bake

  1. Clean and wet the middle part of a barrel head.

  2. Spread the mixture about 1 inch thick, then smooth it with a spoon.

  3. Baste with a little milk.

  4. Set the board at an angle.

  5. Bake over clear coals.

  6. Slip a thread under the cake, then turn the cake.

  7. Baste the cake.

  8. Bake the other side similarly.

  9. Split the cake.

  10. Butter it while hot.

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. Butter + milktop 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 + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
Cooked soft and then mixed with flour to form the body of the cake.
Rice flour
Binds the cooked rice into a thick batter that holds its shape when baked.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving a softer texture and flavour to the cake.
Milk
Adds moisture to the batter and, brushed on, helps the surface brown while baking.

The step that matters

Spread the mixture about 1 inch thick. Spreading it evenly to a consistent thickness helps the cake bake through at the same rate, so the centre is not left wet while the outside over-browns.

“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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