Name: Another Way to Make Rice Cakes
Ingredients: 9 large eggs, yolks only; ½ pound sifted loaf sugar; ½ pound sifted rice flour; ½ pound fresh butter, melted; a few pounded bitter almonds

Why it works: Flour and almond are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,673 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Another Way to Make Rice Cakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

9 large eggs, yolks only
½ pound sifted loaf sugar
½ pound sifted rice flour
½ pound fresh butter, melted
a few pounded bitter almonds

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

Beat the yolks of the eggs until extremely light.
Add the sifted sugar and rice flour to the eggs.
Mix in the melted butter and pounded bitter almonds.

Bake

Half fill small buttered tins with the mixture.
Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven 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.

Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,673 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Rice + almondtop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,456 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Butter + almondtop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together9,245 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).
Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked 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

Egg yolks: Bind the batter and set into a rich, tender crumb when baked.
Rice flour: Provides structure without gluten, giving a light, delicate, slightly crisp texture.
Butter: Adds fat for tenderness and richness, and helps the cakes brown.
Sugar: Adds sweetness and contributes to browning in the oven.

The step that matters

Beating the yolks until extremely light. Beating incorporates air into the yolks, which helps the cakes rise and gives them a light texture. Under-beaten yolks produce a denser, heavier cake.

“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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Another Way to Make Rice Cakes