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Dessert

Ribbon Cake

A layered fruit cake made with flour, sugar, butter, milk, spices, raisins, currants, molasses, and citron.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Goff, May Perrin, [from old catalog] ed · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 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

Make the batter

  1. Mix two and a half cups sugar, one cup butter, one cup sweet milk, one teaspoon cream tartar, half teaspoon soda, four cups flour, and four eggs.

  2. Reserve a third of this mixture, and bake the rest in two loaves of the same size.

Make the fruit loaf

  1. Add to the reserved third one cup raisins, one-quarter pound citron, one cup currants, two tablespoonfuls molasses, and a teaspoonful of each kind of spice.

  2. Bake the fruit mixture in a tin the same size as the other loaves.

Assemble and finish

  1. Put the three loaves together with a little icing or currant jelly, placing the fruit loaf in the middle.

  2. Frost the top and sides.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

702Calories
20 gProtein
7 gFat
139 gCarbs

Counts 5 of 6 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 5 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Grape1/2 cup (76g)62
Molasses1 tbsp (20g)58
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Coffeenot in our table0

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

By Goff, May Perrin, [from old catalog] ed. 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.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Raisin + curranttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Raisin + molassestop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,577 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Forms the structure that holds the cake's crumb together.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness to the crumb.
Butter (in the method)
Adds fat for tenderness and a richer texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps brown the crust.
Raisins
Add chewy sweetness and moisture to the fruit loaf.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Orangefits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, flour, raisin, molasses, coffee, egg. 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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