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Rice Batter-cakes

A batter made from boiled rice, sour milk, soda, flour, and egg, pan‑fried into golden cakes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter 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 Batter-cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. Beat the egg until very light.

  2. Stir enough soda into the sour milk to make it foam.

  3. Mash the cold boiled rice thoroughly.

  4. Mix the foamed sour milk and mashed rice together.

  5. Add flour until the batter is thick enough to hold its shape.

Cook

  1. Heat a griddle and grease it well.

  2. Pour batter onto the griddle and cook until golden brown on both sides.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Milk + ricetop 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. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked 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

Egg
Adds richness and helps bind the batter while lightening its texture when beaten.
Sour milk
Its acidity reacts with soda to produce foam, which lightens the batter.
Soda
Reacts with the acid in sour milk to release gas, helping the cakes rise.
Cold boiled rice
Provides body and starch that give the batter its texture once mashed.
Flour
Adds structure, thickening the batter so it holds its shape on the griddle.

The step that matters

Pour batter onto the griddle and cook until golden brown on both sides. The griddle must be hot and well greased before pouring. Batter that meets a cool or dry surface sticks and cooks unevenly, while flipping too early can tear the cakes before their set structure has formed.

“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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