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Dessert

Rice Tea Cake

A baked cake made from rice flour, wheat flour, and milk, sweetened with sugar and baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Wheat and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,418 recipes. Both carry (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, melon. The science ↓

Rice Tea Cake

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, mix the rice flour, wheat flour, cream of tartar, baking soda, butter, sugar, and salt.

  2. Gradually add the milk and stir until well combined.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the batter into a greased baking dish and bake until golden brown.

  2. Serve warm.

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. Wheat + milktop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  2. Rice + wheattop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together423 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  3. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Rice + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,374 recipes

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

  5. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Rice flour
Provides the main structure and a light, tender crumb in the cake.
Wheat flour
Adds gluten structure so the cake holds its shape while baking.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the batter so baking soda reacts and helps the cake rise.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the batter to release gas, leavening the cake.
Butter
Adds fat for richness, softness, and a tender texture.
Milk
Hydrates the flours and helps form the batter's moist, cohesive texture.

The step that matters

Combining the leaveners with the batter. Cream of tartar and baking soda must be mixed evenly into the dry ingredients so they react throughout the batter; uneven distribution leaves dense or bitter patches and poor rise.

“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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