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Dessert

Rice Cake

A baked cake made from eggs, sugar, butter, rice flour, and wheat flour.

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

Why it works: Rice and wheat match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 423 recipes. Both carry 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline, which smells popcorn, roasted. The science ↓

Rice Cake

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

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

  2. Weigh the eggs in their shells and measure out the same weight in sugar and butter.

  3. Measure half the weight of the eggs in rice flour and half in wheat flour.

Make the batter

  1. Mix the sugar and eggs until well combined.

  2. Gradually add the flours, mixing until smooth.

  3. Fold in the rice flour after the other flours.

  4. Add the butter and mix until incorporated.

  5. Add any desired flavoring before baking.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan.

  2. Bake for about 1 hour and 10 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

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. Rice + wheattop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together423 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  2. Flour + wheattop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,373 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + wheattop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

Butter and flour 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
Provide structure and lift as they set, and add richness to the crumb.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the batter stay tender while it bakes.
Rice flour
Adds a light, tender texture to the crumb.
Wheat flour
Provides gluten structure that holds the cake together.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a soft, moist texture.

The step that matters

Fold in the rice flour after the other flours. Adding flour gently and late limits gluten development from overmixing, which keeps the crumb tender rather than tough and dense.

“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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