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Dessert

Rice Gems

Rice Gems are baked rice cakes made with butter, eggs, milk, flour, and baking powder.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk 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 Gems

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. Work the melted butter into the cold rice until every grain is coated.

  2. Beat in the whipped eggs and salt.

  3. Thin the mixture with warmed milk.

  4. Add the flour sifted with baking powder, then beat for one minute.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour into greased gem pans.

  2. Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C).

  3. Turn out when done.

  4. Serve immediately.

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

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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
Bind the batter and add structure as they set in the oven.
All-purpose flour
Provides the starch and gluten that give the gems their set, sliceable structure.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the heat, helping the gems rise and turn light.
Cold rice
Forms the body of the gems, giving bite and a tender crumb.
Melted butter
Coats the rice grains and adds fat for richness and browning.
Warmed milk
Moistens the batter so the flour and rice hydrate evenly.

The step that matters

Add the flour sifted with baking powder, then beat for one minute. Baking powder starts releasing gas as soon as it is wet and heated, so the batter should go into the pans promptly. Beating only briefly develops enough gluten for structure without toughening the gems.

“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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