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Dessert

Rice Cakes

A sweet cake made with rice flour, eggs, sugar, brandy, lemon rind, and mace.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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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 Cakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA brisk oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a brisk oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Whisk the egg yolks for 15 minutes.

  2. Add the sifted sugar and mix well.

  3. Stir in the rice flour, brandy, grated lemon rind, and pounded mace.

  4. Beat the egg whites until stiff and fold them into the mixture.

  5. Mix everything together for 10 minutes.

Bake

  1. Fill a hoop with the mixture and bake in a brisk oven at 400°F (200°C).

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. Rice + lemontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,366 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  2. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Rice + flourtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Egg and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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 yolks
Enrich the batter and add richness and colour to the cakes.
Egg whites
Beaten until stiff, they trap air and give the cakes a light, risen structure.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the batter hold its texture as it bakes.
Rice flour
Provides the main body of the cakes, setting as the batter bakes.

The step that matters

Beat the egg whites until stiff and fold them in. Stiff whites hold the air that lifts the cakes. Folding gently keeps that air in, so the cakes stay light instead of collapsing or turning dense.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, sugar, rice, flour, brandy, lemon):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Turmericfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, rice, flour, brandy, lemon. 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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