Name: Ribbon Cake
Ingredients: Any cake batter preferred; 2 white layers; 1 rose-colored layer; 1 yellow layer; 2 black layers (use chocolate for black layers); Coconut icing

Why it works: Chocolate and coconut are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,107 recipes. Both carry gamma-nonanolactone, which smells coconut, sweet. The science ↓

Ribbon Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Bake two white layers and one rose-colored layer.
Make a yellow cake batter and bake one yellow layer.
Prepare two black layers using chocolate.
Layer the cakes together with coconut icing.

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.

Chocolate + coconuttop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,107 recipes

Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).
Rose + coconuttop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together185 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
Rose + chocolatetop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together149 recipes

Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).