Why it works: Rice and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,366 recipes. Both carry (e,e)-2,4-decadienal, which smells fatty, deep fried. The science ↓
Rice Cake
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare
Separate the egg whites from the yolks and whisk them both well.
Add the beaten butter to the yolks and mix until creamy.
Mix the batter
Stir in the flour, ground rice, and finely minced lemon rind (if using).
Beat the mixture well, then fold in the whipped egg whites.
Pour the batter into a buttered cake mold.
Bake
Bake at 350°F (175°C) for nearly 1.5 hours.
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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Rice + lemontop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,366 recipes
Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Rice + buttertop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together9,645 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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
- Whites trapped by whisking add lift and an airy, light crumb to the cake.
- Butter
- Fat that adds richness and a tender, moist texture to the crumb.
- Flour
- Provides structure so the cake holds its shape as it bakes.
- Ground rice
- Gives a fine, slightly dense texture and a delicate crumb.
- Loaf sugar
- Sweetens the cake and helps it brown during baking.
The step that matters
Fold in the whipped egg whites. Folding gently keeps the air in the whipped whites; stirring or overmixing deflates the batter, leaving a denser cake that rises less.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rice, flour, sugar, egg, butter):
- Raisinfits better
- Vanillafits better
- Coconutfits better
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against rice, flour, sugar, egg, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
“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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