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Dessert

Rice Loaf

A loaf made with flour, sugar, coconut, ground rice, eggs, butter, milk, and lemon essence.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Coconut and rice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,063 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Rice Loaf

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Cream butter, sugar, and eggs together, adding the eggs one at a time.

  2. Beat well by hand for 10 minutes.

  3. Sift in the flour and baking powder, then add the coconut, ground rice, and lemon essence. Mix all ingredients well with the milk.

Bake

  1. Line a 1 lb. loaf tin with white paper and pour in the mixture.

  2. Bake for 1 hour in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C).

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. Coconut + ricetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,063 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Rice + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,374 recipes

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

  4. Coconut + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,648 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as they set during baking.
All-purpose flour
Provides the main structure that holds the loaf together.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender crumb and rich flavour.
Castor sugar
Sweetens the loaf and helps trap air when creamed with butter.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the loaf rises.
Ground rice
Gives the loaf a finer, slightly tender texture.

The step that matters

Beating the creamed butter, sugar, and eggs. Creaming butter and sugar traps air that gives the loaf lift, and adding eggs one at a time keeps the emulsion from splitting. Beating well by hand for 10 minutes builds this air and a smooth batter before the flour goes in.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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