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Dessert

Rice Pound Cake

A cake made with butter, sugar, eggs, ground rice, flour, wine, nutmeg, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Rice Pound Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Beat the butter, sugar, wine, and nutmeg together until very light.

  2. Gradually beat in ¼ of the flour, adding the cream half at a time.

  3. Whisk the eggs until very thick, then stir them in gradually.

  4. Add the remaining flour one-third at a time, mixing well.

Bake

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Pour the batter into a pan lined with white paper.

  3. Bake for 3 hours.

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

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

  2. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Rice + nutmegtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Eggs
Whisked eggs trap air and add structure as the cake sets in the oven.
Butter
Creamed with sugar, it traps air and gives the cake a tender, rich crumb.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the cake once it is mixed into the batter.
Ground rice
Adds a fine, slightly crumbly texture that differs from a cake made only with flour.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps create a light texture when beaten with butter.

The step that matters

Beating the butter, sugar, wine, and nutmeg until very light. Creaming softened butter with sugar traps air in the fat. These air pockets expand in the oven and give the cake its lightness, so under-beating leaves a dense crumb.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sugar, egg, rice, flour, wine, cream):

  1. Cinnamonfits about as well
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Turmericfits less well
  4. Tarragonfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, egg, rice, flour, wine, cream. 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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