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Dessert

Rice Buns

Rice buns are small baked buns made with ground rice, flour, butter, sugar, eggs, milk, and baking powder.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Rice Buns

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

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a bowl, mix the ground rice, flour, and baking powder.

  3. In another bowl, cream the butter and sugar together.

Make the batter

  1. Add one egg to the butter mixture and half of the rice and flour mixture; beat well.

  2. Add the second egg and milk, then the remaining rice and flour; beat well.

  3. Pour the batter into small buttered tins, filling them only halfway.

Bake and cool

  1. Bake until golden brown, then turn onto a sieve 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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Rice + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,374 recipes

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

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Ground rice
Gives the buns a tender, slightly crumbly texture in place of some wheat flour.
All-purpose flour
Provides structure so the batter holds its shape while baking.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the oven so the buns rise and become light.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and creaming it with sugar traps air for a lighter crumb.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and, creamed with butter, helps create a tender texture.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness as they set in the oven.

The step that matters

Filling the tins only halfway. Baking powder keeps raising the batter in the oven, so overfilled tins can overflow or bake unevenly. Leaving room lets the buns rise fully and bake through without spilling.

“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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