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Dessert

Rice Buns

Rice buns are sweet, baked cakes made from ground rice, sugar, butter, eggs, and baking powder.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Rice and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,645 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Rice Buns

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. In a bowl, combine 2 cups of ground rice and ½ teaspoon of baking powder.

  2. Add ½ cup of sugar and 2 ounces of butter, mixing well with a wooden spoon.

  3. Beat in 2 eggs until the mixture is light and well combined.

  4. Grease small tins or patty pans with butter.

  5. Fill the tins two-thirds full with the mixture.

Bake and cool

  1. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) for 15 minutes.

  2. Turn the buns out of the tins and lean them against a plate to cool.

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. Rice + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  5. Rice + sugartop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,744 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Ground rice
Forms the bulk of the batter, providing the structure of the buns.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add richness and structure as they set in the oven.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and a richer flavor in the baked buns.
Sugar
Sweetens the buns and helps them brown lightly in the oven.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the buns rise and become light.

The step that matters

Beat in the eggs until light and well combined. Beating incorporates air into the batter, which expands in the oven and helps the buns rise. Under-mixed batter stays dense, while the eggs must be fully blended so the mixture bakes evenly.

“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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