Skip to main content
Dessert

Rice Buns

Rice buns are small baked cakes made from ground rice, sugar, margarine, egg, milk, flour, and baking powder.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Rice and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,374 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Rice Buns

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderately quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Mix 1 teaspoon of ground rice and 1 teaspoon of sugar together and use to coat greased patty pans or small cake tins.

Make the batter

  1. Cream the margarine and sugar together until light and fluffy.

  2. Add the egg and beat well.

  3. Stir in the ground rice and any desired flavoring, then add the milk.

  4. Sift in the flour and baking powder, mixing until well combined.

Bake

  1. Spoon about 1 teaspoon of the mixture into each prepared tin.

  2. Bake for about 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.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Ground rice
Gives the buns a fine, slightly crumbly and tender texture.
Margarine
Adds fat that creams with the sugar to trap air and keep the buns tender.
Castor sugar
Sweetens the buns and helps create a light, aerated creamed base.
Egg
Binds the batter and adds structure and richness as it sets in the oven.
All-purpose flour
Provides the main structure that sets the buns as they bake.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the oven so the buns rise and become light.

The step that matters

Creaming the margarine and sugar. Beating until light and fluffy traps air in the fat, which gives the batter lift. Under-creaming leaves dense buns, while the later mixing should be kept gentle so the flour does not overwork the batter.

“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.

You might also like

Rice CakeRice Cake120 recipesRice CreamRice Cream43 recipesRice JellyRice Jelly42 recipesRice PuddingRice Pudding22 recipes