Skip to main content
Dessert

To Make a Rice Cake

A sweet cake made with butter, eggs, ground rice, sugar, lemon rind, and ratafia, baked in a greased tin.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
To Make a 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 ↓

To Make a Rice Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA good oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a good oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare and mix

  1. Place a large pot of water over the fire.

  2. Beat the butter to a cream.

  3. Place the bowl in the water.

  4. Break in the eggs.

  5. Whisk the eggs for 10 minutes until very light.

  6. Gradually mix in the ground rice and pounded sugar.

  7. Beat the mixture well.

  8. Add the grated lemon rind and a few drops of ratafia.

  9. Butter the cake tin.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into the tin.

  2. Bake for 30 minutes in a good oven at 350°F (175°C).

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. Butter + ricetop 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. Butter + sugartop 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

Butter
Creamed with the sugar, it carries air and gives the cake a rich, tender crumb.
Eggs
Whisked until very light, they trap air that lifts the cake and gives it structure as it sets.
Ground rice
Provides the body of the cake, setting in the oven to a fine, tender crumb.
Pounded lump sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps the butter and eggs hold their creamed texture.

The step that matters

Whisking the eggs. Whisking the eggs until very light traps air that leavens the batter. If they are under-whisked, the cake will be dense, so the eggs need to be beaten long enough to thicken and lighten before the ground rice is folded in.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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

You might also like

Lemon Rice PuddingLemon Rice Pudding19 recipesLemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipesLemon SherbetLemon Sherbet103 recipes