Name: Puffed Rice Cakes
Ingredients: 4 pounds sugar; ½ pint New Orleans molasses; 1 pint cream; 1 pint milk; 1 pound glucose; ½ pound butter; a few drops of lemon oil; puffed rice

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 ↓

Puffed Rice Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 280°F (138°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the syrup

In a kettle, combine sugar, molasses, cream, milk, glucose, and butter.
Cook the mixture until it reaches 280°F (138°C).
Stir in a few drops of lemon oil.

Shape the cakes

Add as much puffed rice as you can to the mixture.
Pour the mixture onto a greased slab and flatten it out.
Cut into 5‑cent cakes.

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.

Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Milk + ricetop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,374 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together43,450 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together9,225 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Sugar: Provides sweetness and, when cooked, the firm candy structure that holds the rice together.
Molasses: Adds deep flavour and colour, and some moisture that keeps the candy from turning hard too quickly.
Glucose: Inhibits sugar crystallisation, keeping the cooked mixture smooth and chewy rather than grainy.
Butter: Adds fat for a softer bite and richer flavour in the set candy.
Puffed rice: Forms the light, crisp body of the cakes, trapping air within the cooked syrup.

The step that matters

Cook the mixture until it reaches 280°F (138°C). Sugar syrup's final texture depends on how much water has boiled off. Stopping at the right temperature sets the candy firm enough to hold the rice, while overcooking makes it brittle and burnt-tasting.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, molasses, cream, milk, butter, rice):

Vanillafits better
Coconutfits better
Figfits better
Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, molasses, cream, milk, butter, rice. 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.