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Dessert

Morton Sandwich

A sweet sandwich made with ground rice, butter, eggs, flour, sugar, and topped with preserve or lemon curd.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Rice and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,366 recipes. Both carry (e,e)-2,4-decadienal, which smells fatty, deep fried. The science ↓

Morton Sandwich

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Beat the butter until creamy, then add the sugar.

  3. Stir in the flour and beat in the eggs.

  4. Add the ground rice and mix well.

  5. Pour the batter into two round tins lined with greased paper.

Bake and assemble

  1. Bake for about 7 minutes.

  2. Spread a little preserve or lemon curd on one round, then place the other round on top.

  3. Sift castor sugar over the top and serve.

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 + lemontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,366 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + sugartop 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 + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

Butter
Adds richness and a tender, crumbly texture as it is creamed with the sugar.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and lift as they are beaten in.
Flour
Provides the main structure that holds the sponge rounds together.
Ground rice
Adds a fine, slightly sandy texture that keeps the crumb tender.
Castor sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps create a light, tender crumb when creamed with butter.

The step that matters

Bake for about 7 minutes. The rounds are thin and bake quickly, so they can dry out or over-brown if left too long. Watch for a light golden colour and a springy top, since sugar and butter brown readily at high heat.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

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

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