Name: Rice Biscuits or Cakes
Ingredients: ½ lb rice flour; ½ lb powdered sugar; 5 lb butter; 2 eggs

Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Rice Biscuits or Cakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA very slow oven

Ingredients

½ lb rice flour
½ lb powdered sugar
5 lb butter
2 eggs

Directions

The book says “a very slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the dough

Beat the butter until creamy.
Stir in the rice flour and powdered sugar.
Moisten the mixture with the well-beaten eggs.
Roll out the paste and cut into small cakes with a round cutter.

Bake

Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) for 12 to 18 minutes.

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.

Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together92,116 recipes

Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together106,462 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Rice + buttertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together9,645 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Rice + flourtop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,611 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Butter: Adds fat and richness, creating a tender, crumbly texture as it is creamed.
Rice flour: Forms the bulk of the cakes and gives a delicate, crisp-tender texture without gluten.
Powdered sugar: Adds sweetness and dissolves easily into the butter for a fine, even crumb.
Eggs: Add moisture and bind the dry ingredients into a workable paste.

The step that matters

Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) for 12 to 18 minutes.. The butter and sugar brown slowly at this moderate heat, so the cakes set and colour evenly. Because the time range is wide, check for a pale golden edge and a dry surface, since rice flour cakes dry out and darken quickly once they overbake.

“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.