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Dessert

Rice Cake

A cake made with rice flour, all-purpose flour, eggs, sugar, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Rice Cake

Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Rice Cake

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.

Prepare

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

  2. Weigh the eggs and use the same weight for sugar and butter.

  3. In a bowl, mix the rice flour and all-purpose flour.

Make the batter

  1. Beat the eggs and sugar together until light and fluffy.

  2. Gradually add the butter, mixing well.

  3. Fold in the flour mixture gently.

  4. Add any flavoring you like before baking.

  5. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan.

Bake

  1. Bake for about 1 hour and 10 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + ricetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,645 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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

Eggs
Beaten with sugar to trap air, giving the cake its light, fluffy structure.
Sugar
Beaten with the eggs to add sweetness and help create a light, fluffy texture.
Unsalted butter
Adds fat and richness, contributing moisture and a tender texture to the cake.
Rice flour
Provides a light, tender crumb with a delicate texture in the cake.
All-purpose flour
Forms the main gluten structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.

The step that matters

Fold in the flour mixture gently. Overmixing once flour is added develops gluten, which can make the cake tough and dense. Folding keeps the air beaten into the eggs so the cake rises light.

“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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