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 batter
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
In a bowl, cream together the sugar and butter until light and fluffy.
Add the milk, flour, eggs, cream of tartar, baking soda, and vanilla extract; mix until smooth.
Divide the batter in half and pour into two greased cake pans.
To the remaining batter, add the raisins, currants, citron, cinnamon, cloves, molasses, and a little flour to thicken.
Pour this mixture into two greased cake pans.
Bake and assemble
Bake all layers in the preheated oven until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.
Once cooled, layer the cakes with jelly or icing.
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.
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Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together9,075 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together19,187 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).
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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together35,032 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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
- Sugar
- Sweetens the cake and, creamed with butter, traps air for a light crumb.
- Butter
- Adds fat for tenderness and flavour, and helps trap air when creamed with sugar.
- Flour
- Provides the structure that sets the cake's crumb as the batter bakes.
- Eggs
- Bind the batter and add structure and richness as they set in the oven.
- Cream of tartar
- Acidifies the batter and works with baking soda to lift the cake.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acidic ingredients to release gas that helps the cake rise.
The step that matters
Dividing the batter between the plain and fruit portions. Both batters must be spread into the pans in even layers so they bake at the same rate. Uneven layers can cause some to dry out or sink before the others are set.
Swap the raisin
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, butter, milk, flour, egg, cream, vanilla):
- Figfits about as well
- Coconutfits about as well
- Raisinthe original
- Strawberryfits about as well
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, milk, flour, egg, cream, vanilla. 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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