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Dessert

Rice Cake

A sweet cake made from ground rice, flour, sugar, and eggs, baked until set.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Rice Cake

Why it works: Flour and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 92,116 recipes. Both carry phenylacetaldehyde, which smells hawthorne, honey. The science ↓

Rice Cake

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.

Make the batter

  1. Mix the ground rice and flour together.

  2. Add the sifted sugar and mix well.

  3. Beat the egg whites until stiff, then fold them into the mixture.

  4. Stir until the mixture begins to look white.

  5. Add the egg yolks and stir everything together well.

Bake

  1. Line a baking tin with buttered paper and pour the mixture in.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until set.

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.

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.

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  2. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  5. Rice + sugartop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,744 recipes

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

Flour and egg 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

Ground rice
Forms the main body of the cake and gives it a firm, sliceable structure.
Flour
Adds starch and structure that help the cake hold its shape as it sets.
Sifted sugar
Adds sweetness and helps give the cake a tender crumb.
Egg whites
Beaten until stiff, they trap air that lightens the batter and helps it rise.
Egg yolks
Add richness and fat, and help bind the batter as it sets.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. Fold gently so the air trapped in the stiff whites is kept. Stirring hard deflates the foam, leaving a denser cake that rises less in the oven.

“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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