Why it works: Rice and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,611 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Baking Powder
Ingredients
Directions
Pound the carbonate of soda in a mortar.
Add the rice flour and pound together.
Add the cream of tartar and pound until thoroughly mixed.
Transfer to a wide-mouthed bottle, cork it, and set aside for use.
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.
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Rice + flourtop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,611 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Cream + flourtop 20% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together30,481 recipes
Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).
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Cream + ricetop 23% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together3,399 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Carbonate of soda
- Provides the base that releases carbon dioxide gas to make dough and batter rise.
- Cream of tartar
- Acid that reacts with the carbonate of soda to produce the leavening gas.
- Rice flour
- Dry filler that keeps the powder loose and stops the reactive ingredients from clumping.
The step that matters
Pound until thoroughly mixed. The carbonate of soda and cream of tartar must be evenly distributed, otherwise some spots get too much acid or base, causing uneven rising and off flavours.
“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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