Name: White and Brown Ribbon Cake
Ingredients: two cups of granulated sugar; three-fourths cup of butter; one cup of sweet milk; half cups of flour; two square pans; six eggs; two heaping teaspoonfuls of royal baking powder

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 ↓

White and Brown Ribbon Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

Mix sugar and butter together.
Add eggs well beaten.
Add milk.
Add flour with baking powder, sifted several times.
Take one-third of the mixture, add enough cocoa to make dark as desired, flavor dark part with vanilla.
Flavor light part with lemon.

Bake

Bake in two square pans, putting light part on the bottom of pan and dark on the top.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

833Calories

27 gProtein

26 gFat

120 gCarbs

What these numbers assume: 5 portions

Ingredient	Portion assumed	kcal
Flour	1 cup (125g) all-purpose	455
Milk	1 cup (244ml) whole	149
Butter	1 tbsp (14g)	102
Egg	1 large egg (50g)	78
Sugar	1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated	49

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By United Methodist Church (Grayville, Ill.). 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. See the original page.

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.

Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together92,116 recipes

Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together106,462 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

Butter: Creams with sugar to add richness and a tender crumb.
Eggs: Provide structure and richness, helping the cake bind and rise.
Flour: Forms the structure of the cake once baked.
Royal baking powder: Releases gas in the batter, helping the cake rise and become light.
Granulated sugar: Sweetens the cake and helps create a tender texture.

The step that matters

Layering the light and dark batter in the pans. Pouring the light batter first and the dark batter on top keeps the two layers distinct, since the batters are similar in density and can blend if poured carelessly or stirred after mixing.

“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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White and Brown Ribbon Cake