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Dessert

A Best Rice Cake

A sweet rice cake made with almonds, butter, sugar, cinnamon, and egg yolks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,514 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

A Best Rice Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the almond base

  1. Blanch and finely pound the Jordan and bitter almonds.

  2. Add water and press the mixture through a cloth into a bowl with the half-boiled rice.

Make the rice mixture

  1. In a pot, combine the rice mixture with butter, sugar, cinnamon, and salt.

  2. Stew gently until very tender, then rub the mixture through a fine sieve.

  3. Stir in the egg yolks and currants.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into a well-papered and buttered hoop and bake.

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. Almond + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,514 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Rice + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,137 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Almond + ricetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,456 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Almond + buttertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Jordan almonds
Provide the main nutty flavour and the body of the cake.
Half-boiled rice
Gives the cake its starchy bulk and a soft, tender crumb.
Fresh butter
Adds richness and moisture, helping the cake stay tender.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the cake brown lightly in the oven.
Egg yolks
Enrich the mixture and help bind it as it sets.

The step that matters

Rub the mixture through a fine sieve after stewing. Stewing softens the rice fully so it can pass through the sieve smoothly. Sieving breaks down any remaining grains and lumps, giving an even, fine texture once baked.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against almond, rice, butter, sugar, cinnamon, 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.

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