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Dessert

Small Rice Cakes

A baked cake made from flour, ground rice, sugar, butter, egg, 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 ↓

Small Rice Cakes

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 the batter

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

  2. In a bowl, cream the butter and sugar together.

  3. Add the egg and beat well.

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

  5. Gradually stir the dry mixture into the creamed mixture.

  6. Add milk as needed to form a stiff paste.

Bake

  1. Spoon the mixture into greased patty pans.

  2. Bake for 30 minutes.

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

Flour
Provides the main structure that holds the cakes together as they bake.
Ground rice
Adds a fine, slightly crumbly texture to the cakes.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender crumb.
Castor sugar
Adds sweetness and, when creamed with butter, helps trap air for a lighter texture.
Egg
Binds the mixture and adds structure and richness.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the cakes rise in the oven.

The step that matters

Gradually stir the dry mixture into the creamed mixture. Mixing the flour in gently and only until combined limits gluten development, which keeps the cakes tender rather than tough.

“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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