Skip to main content
Dessert

Ground Rice Cheesecakes

A cheesecake made with ground rice, sugar, butter, egg, and lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Ground Rice Cheesecakes

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. Rub the sugar on the rind of the lemon, then pound the lemon rind.

  2. Beat the butter until creamy, then mix the sugar into the butter.

  3. Add the beaten egg and mix well.

  4. Stir in the ground rice and lemon juice.

Bake

  1. Line small patty tins with flaky or short pastry.

  2. Place 1 teaspoon of the mixture in each tin.

  3. Bake at 400°F (200°C) until golden.

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. Rice + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,645 recipes

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

  3. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Ground rice
Gives the filling a light, slightly grainy body as it sets.
Butter
Adds richness and tenderness to the filling.
Egg
Binds the mixture and helps it set when baked.
Loaf sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps it brown in the oven.
Lemon
Its rind adds aroma and its juice adds acidity.

The step that matters

Bake until golden. Baking only until golden sets the egg and rice while keeping the filling moist. Overbaking dries the filling and makes the tarts tough.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Lemonthe original
  4. Raisinfits about as well

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

You might also like

Lemon Rice PuddingLemon Rice Pudding19 recipesLemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipesRice CakeRice Cake120 recipes