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Dessert

Rice Seed Cake

A cake made with ground rice, flour, powdered sugar, eggs, and caraway seeds.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and caraway match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,435 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Rice Seed Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the batter

  1. Preheat your oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. In a bowl, mix the ground rice, flour, powdered sugar, and caraway seeds.

  3. In a separate bowl, beat the egg yolks until well combined, then add them to the dry mixture.

  4. Beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form, then gently fold them into the mixture.

  5. Beat the entire mixture for 1 hour.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan and bake for 1 hour.

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. Flour + carawaytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,435 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Rice + carawaytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together64 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  4. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Eggs
Whites trap air for lift, while yolks add richness and help bind the batter.
Ground rice
Gives a tender, slightly sandy crumb in place of some wheat structure.
All-purpose flour
Provides the gluten network that gives the cake its structure.
Powdered sugar
Adds sweetness and a fine, even texture to the crumb.
Caraway seeds
Contribute a distinctive aromatic, slightly peppery flavor.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Stiff egg whites hold air bubbles that lift the batter in the oven. Folding gently keeps those bubbles intact, while vigorous mixing deflates them and leaves a denser cake.

Swap the caraway

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Turmericfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Carawaythe 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.

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