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Boston Rice Cakes

A baked rice cake made with boiled rice, butter, salt, eggs, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour 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 ↓

Boston Rice Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the rice

  1. Boil the rice until tender.

  2. While the rice is hot, stir in the butter and salt.

Make the batter

  1. Separate the egg whites and yolks, beat them separately, and then stir them into the rice mixture.

  2. Thicken the mixture with flour.

Bake

  1. Bake in muffin rings or on a lightly greased griddle.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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
Beaten whites add lift and airiness, while yolks bind and enrich the cakes.
Flour
Thickens the mixture so it holds its shape rather than spreading when baked.
Rice
Forms the body of the cakes, giving a soft, tender texture.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a softer crumb.

The step that matters

Beating the egg whites separately. Whites beaten to stiff peaks trap air that expands in the oven, giving lift. Folding them in gently keeps that air from collapsing, so the cakes stay light rather than dense.

“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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