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Dessert

Ribbon Cake

A layered cake made from several batters flavored and colored differently, with fruit and jelly between the layers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 21 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and raisin match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Ribbon 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 the batters

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

  2. In a bowl, mix 2 cups sugar, 3 cups flour, 1 cup sweet milk, 3 eggs, ¼ teaspoon salt, ½ cup butter, and 1 teaspoon baking soda.

  3. Divide the batter in half; pour one half into cake pans.

  4. To the other half, add 1 tablespoon molasses, ½ lb sliced citron, a little grated nutmeg, 1 large cup chopped raisins, 1 teaspoon cinnamon, and 1 tablespoon flour.

Bake and layer the first cakes

  1. Pour this mixture into two layers and bake all layers.

  2. While warm, layer the cakes alternately with cranberry or any tart jelly.

Make the remaining layers

  1. For the second half, mix 6 egg yolks, 1 cup sugar, 2 cups flour, ½ cup butter, ⅓ cup milk, and 1 teaspoon baking powder.

  2. Divide this batter; flavor one half with orange and the other with vanilla and enough grated chocolate to color it brown.

  3. Take enough for one layer from each half.

  4. Then mix ½ cup butter, ⅓ cup milk, 2 cups flour, 1½ cups sugar, and 5 egg whites.

  5. Divide this batter; flavor one half with lemon and the other with rose water and color it pink or red with pulverized cochineal.

  6. Take enough for one layer from each half.

  7. Mix the remaining batter and add any desired fruit.

  8. Bake in 5 layers, alternating fruit layers with brown, white, yellow, and red layers.

  9. Frost the top if desired.

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. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Nutmeg + raisintop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

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

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

  4. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness to the layers.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake layers together.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender crumb and rich flavor.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses and milk to lift the batter.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter to help the layers rise.
Molasses
Adds moisture, darker color, and a deeper sweetness to the fruit layer.

The step that matters

Bake all layers in the same oven. Layers of different batters bake at the same rate only when they sit evenly in the oven; uneven heat can make some layers rise unevenly or dry out, so keep the pans level and rotate them if needed.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, flour, milk, egg, butter, molasses, raisin):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Gingerfits less well
  4. Allspicefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, flour, milk, egg, butter, molasses, raisin. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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