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Dessert

Rice Buns

Rice buns are sweet, buttery baked goods made with flour, ground rice, baking powder, butter, sugar, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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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 Buns

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a bowl, beat the butter until creamy.

  3. Add the sugar and mix well.

  4. Gradually add the beaten eggs, mixing until combined.

  5. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, ground rice, and baking powder.

  6. Stir the dry ingredients into the butter mixture until just combined.

Bake

  1. Turn the batter into greased tins.

  2. Bake for about 25 minutes or 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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  5. Flour + ricetop 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

All-purpose flour
Provides the main structure that holds the bun crumb together as it bakes.
Ground rice
Gives a tender, slightly crumbly texture compared with flour alone.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the oven, helping the buns rise and become light.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and when creamed with sugar it traps air for a softer crumb.
Sugar
Sweetens the batter and helps it brown attractively in the oven.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add moisture and structure as they set during baking.

The step that matters

Stir the dry ingredients into the butter mixture until just combined. Overmixing once flour is added develops gluten, which toughens the crumb. Stopping as soon as the flour disappears keeps the buns tender.

“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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