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Dessert

Rice Cake

A baked cake made from ground rice, flour, powdered sugar, eggs, and lemon peel.

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

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 ↓

Rice Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA gentle oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Mix the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix the ground rice, flour, and powdered sugar.

  2. Sift the mixture gradually into the egg yolks and egg whites.

  3. Add the finely shredded lemon peel and mix well.

Cook and bake

  1. Transfer the mixture to a tin stew-pan and whisk over low heat.

  2. Immediately pour the mixture into the oven and bake at 300°F (150°C) for 40 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. 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 + flourtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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

Ground rice
Gives the cake a tender, slightly crumbly texture.
Flour
Adds some structure so the cake holds its shape.
Egg whites
Trap air when whisked, giving lift and a light texture as they set.
Egg yolks
Add richness and help the cake set as the eggs cook.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the cake and dissolves easily into the batter.

The step that matters

Pour into the oven immediately after whisking. The air trapped in the whisked eggs is fragile. If the mixture sits before baking, the foam can collapse, leaving a denser cake once heat sets it.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, flour, sugar, 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.

More rice cake recipes

Almond 6Caraway 4Lemon 3with Almonds 3 See all 171 →

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