Name: Rice Cakes
Ingredients: 2 ounces ground rice; 6 ounces all-purpose flour; 1 teaspoon baking powder; 1 ounce fresh butter; 2 ounces sugar; ¼ pint milk; 1 egg; lemon flavoring (to taste)

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 Cakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
In a bowl, mix the ground rice, flour, and baking powder.
Rub in the butter and sugar until well combined.
In another bowl, beat the egg with the milk and lemon flavoring.
Combine the wet and dry ingredients to form a batter.

Bake

Grease small patty pans with butter and half fill each with the mixture.
Bake in the preheated oven for 15 minutes.

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.

Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Rice + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,374 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Rice + lemontop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,366 recipes

Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).
Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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 during baking.
Baking powder: Releases gas in the batter, helping the cakes rise and become light.
All-purpose flour: Provides the main structure that holds the cakes together as they bake.
Butter: Adds fat for a tender crumb and rich flavor.
Sugar: Adds sweetness and helps the cakes brown lightly in the oven.
Milk: Adds moisture to hydrate the flour and form a pourable batter.

Swap the lemon

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

Vanillafits better
Raisinfits better
Coconutfits better
Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, flour, butter, sugar, milk, egg. 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.