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 Bread
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Make the batter
Mash the cold cooked rice until smooth.
Beat the eggs until light and fluffy, then add them to the rice.
Stir in 1 cup of sifted flour.
Pour in the milk and mix well.
Bake
Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) until light brown. Do not overbake.
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.
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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
-
Milk + ricetop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,374 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
-
Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
-
Flour + milktop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
-
Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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
- Cold cooked rice
- Provides the bulk and moisture that give the bread its soft, dense body.
- Eggs
- Bind the batter and set during baking to give structure and a light, fluffy texture.
- Flour
- Adds starch and gluten-forming protein that hold the crumb together.
- Milk
- Adds moisture and helps the batter bake through to a tender crumb.
- Butter
- Adds fat, which contributes richness and a more tender crumb.
The step that matters
Bake until light brown and do not overbake. Baking stops once the eggs and starch have set and the surface has browned. Continuing to bake drives off moisture, leaving the bread dry and crumbly.
“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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