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Dessert

Southern Rice Bread

A baked cake made with rice, cornmeal, flour, milk, egg, and baking powder, dusted with powdered sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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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 ↓

Southern Rice Bread

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. Beat the egg until light.

  2. Add the milk, salt, cornmeal, and cold boiled rice, then beat thoroughly.

  3. Sift the flour with baking powder and add to the mixture, then beat well.

  4. Stir in the extra milk.

  5. Pour the batter into greased layer-cake pans.

Bake and assemble

  1. Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) for 30 minutes.

  2. Turn out one cake and spread with butter.

  3. Stack another on top and spread the second cake with butter.

  4. Add the third on top.

  5. Dust with powdered sugar and serve.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Milk + ricetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,374 recipes

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

  3. Flour + buttertop 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. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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
Bind the batter and add structure as they set in the oven.
Cornmeal
Gives the bread its coarse, crumbly texture and corn flavour.
Cold boiled rice
Adds moisture and a tender crumb to the batter.
Flour
Provides structure so the batter holds together when baked.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the oven so the batter rises and lightens.
Milk
Hydrates the dry ingredients and keeps the batter moist.

The step that matters

Pour the batter into greased layer-cake pans. Batter spread evenly in greased pans bakes at a uniform rate and releases cleanly. Uneven depth or sticking can leave cakes thick in one spot, broken, or stuck to the pan.

“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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