Why it works: Flour and buttermilk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,721 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓
Rice Cakes
Ingredients
Directions
The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.
Make the dough
Cream together the lard, butter, sugar, and eggs for a few minutes, adding the eggs one at a time.
Use a wooden spoon to stir in the flour, ground rice, lemon extract, and volatile salts.
Mix well with the buttermilk to form a paste that can be rolled out.
Bake
Scoop 3 oz of the mixture onto baking sheets.
Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) for 10 to 20 minutes.
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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Flour + buttermilktop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,721 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Sugar + buttermilktop 9% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together2,973 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Rice + lemontop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,366 recipes
Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Flour and butter 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
- All-purpose flour
- Provides the main structure that holds the cakes together as they bake.
- Eggs
- Add structure and richness, and help bind the batter together.
- Castor sugar
- Sweetens the cakes and helps create a tender, lightly browned crumb when creamed.
- Lard and butter
- Add fat for tenderness and flavor, coating flour particles to keep the crumb short.
- Volatile salts
- Act as a leavening agent, releasing gas in the oven to lighten the cakes.
- Buttermilk
- Adds moisture and acidity to form the paste and react with the leavening.
The step that matters
Creaming the fat, sugar, and eggs. Beating fat and sugar together traps air that helps the cakes rise and gives a light texture. Adding the eggs one at a time keeps the mixture from curdling, which would weaken that trapped air.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, rice, sugar, butter, egg, buttermilk):
- Raisinfits better
- Vanillafits better
- Coconutfits about as well
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against flour, rice, sugar, butter, egg, buttermilk. 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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