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Dessert

Ground Rice Cake

A baked cake made with eggs, flour, sugar, butter, ground rice, and baking powder.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Ground Rice Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Beat the eggs, flour, and sugar together for 15 minutes.

  2. Add the ground rice and butter last.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into a greased baking pan.

  2. Bake for 45 minutes at 400°F (200°C).

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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + ricetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,645 recipes

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

  5. Flour + ricetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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
Trap air when beaten and set the cake's structure as they cook.
Flour
Forms the main structure that holds the cake together.
Pounded loaf sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the batter hold air and brown lightly.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender crumb and rich flavour.
Ground rice
Gives the cake a finer, lighter texture than flour alone.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the oven to help the cake rise.

The step that matters

Beating the eggs, flour, and sugar for 15 minutes. This long beating traps air in the eggs and sugar, which expands in the oven and gives the cake its lift. Under-beating leaves a dense cake, so the batter should be beaten for the full time before the ground rice and butter are added.

“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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