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Dessert

Rice Biscuits

A baked biscuit made with all-purpose flour, ground rice, sugar, butter, egg, baking powder, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Rice Biscuits

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.

Prepare the dough

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

  2. In a bowl, mix the butter and sugar until well combined.

  3. Add the beaten egg and milk to the butter mixture and mix well.

  4. In a separate bowl, combine the flour and ground rice.

  5. Gradually add the butter mixture to the flour mixture, stirring until combined.

  6. Add the baking powder and mix until a stiff paste forms.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll out the dough with a rolling pin and cut into shapes with a fancy cutter.

  2. Place the biscuits on a buttered baking sheet and bake in the preheated 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.

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

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

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

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

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + sugartop 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

All-purpose flour
Forms the main structure of the dough once hydrated and worked.
Ground rice
Adds a finer, crisper, slightly sandy texture than flour alone.
Butter
Provides fat that tenderizes the biscuits and carries flavor.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the biscuits brown as they bake.
Egg
Binds the dough and adds richness to the structure.
Baking powder
Releases gas that gives the biscuits lift and a lighter crumb.

The step that matters

Adding the baking powder and mixing to a stiff paste. Baking powder starts releasing gas once mixed with moisture, so the dough should be mixed just until combined and shaped promptly. Overworking it can toughen the biscuits and reduce the lift the leavening provides.

“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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