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Dessert

Rice Cake, a Sweet Dish

A sweet baked rice cake made with cream, lemon peel, eggs, butter, and optional preserved fruit.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Rice Cake, a Sweet Dish

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 rice custard

  1. Wash and drain the rice.

  2. Boil the rice with the cream and lemon peel until nearly cold.

  3. Remove the lemon peel.

  4. Place the saucepan over low heat and cook until the rice swells.

  5. Add a little salt and sweeten with pounded loaf sugar.

  6. When the rice is tender, mix in the egg yolks.

  7. Gradually fold in the beaten egg whites along with a bit of fresh butter.

Coat the mold and bake

  1. Clarify half a pound of butter.

  2. Pour the clarified butter into a mold, turning to coat evenly.

  3. Pour out the excess butter.

  4. Sprinkle a layer of grated bread inside the mold.

  5. Brush the bread with clarified butter.

  6. Add more grated bread.

  7. Pour in the rice mixture.

  8. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for 1 hour.

  9. Turn out onto a dish.

  10. Serve with or without garnishing of preserved fruits.

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 + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  4. Rice + lemontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,366 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  5. Rice + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,259 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Rice
Forms the body of the cake and thickens into a soft, tender base as it cooks.
Fresh cream
Provides richness and moisture, giving the rice a creamy texture.
Egg yolks
Enrich the custard and help it set into a firm, sliceable cake when baked.
Egg whites
Whipped and folded in, they add lightness and help the cake rise and hold its structure.
Fresh butter
Adds fat for richness and helps the cake brown and release from the mold.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. Egg whites hold air only when beaten well and folded in gently; overmixing or stirring them in vigorously deflates the foam, so the cake bakes up dense instead of light.

Swap the currant

The recipe marks currant as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rice, cream, lemon, sugar, egg, butter, bread):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, cream, lemon, sugar, egg, butter, bread. 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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