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 ↓
Rice Griddle-cakes
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the batter
Boil the rice and let it cool.
In a bowl, mix the sweet milk, egg yolks, and enough flour to create a stiff batter.
Beat the egg whites until frothy and set aside.
Stir the baking soda, cream of tartar, and salt into the batter.
Gently fold in the beaten egg whites.
Cook and serve
Bake the batter on a griddle until golden brown.
Spread hot cakes with butter.
Add preserves or jelly.
Roll them up.
Cut off the ends.
Sprinkle with sugar.
Serve immediately.
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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
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.
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Rice + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,374 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 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
- Egg whites
- Beaten and folded in to lighten the batter and give the cakes a airy, tender rise.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the cream of tartar and batter to produce gas that leavens the cakes.
- Cream of tartar
- Acidifies the batter so it reacts with the baking soda, adding lift and a tender crumb.
- Egg yolks
- Add richness, structure and colour to the batter as it sets on the griddle.
- Flour
- Provides the starch and structure that hold the stiff batter together as it cooks.
The step that matters
Folding in the egg whites. Beaten whites trap air that leavens the batter. Stirring them vigorously deflates that foam, so fold gently to keep the cakes light and tender.
“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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