Skip to main content
Dessert

Ribbon Cake

A layered cake with raisins and citron, flavored with mace, cinnamon, and molasses, topped with white icing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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. Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.

  2. Add the well-beaten egg yolks.

  3. Alternately mix in the sifted flour with cream of tartar and baking soda.

  4. Add the milk.

  5. Fold in the well-beaten egg whites gently.

Prepare and bake

  1. Prepare three greased oblong shallow tins of equal size.

  2. Divide the batter into three equal parts.

  3. Bake two parts as plain cake.

  4. Dredge the fruit with a little flour before mixing.

  5. Add the chopped raisins and citron to the third part of the batter.

  6. Bake all layers until done.

Assemble and finish

  1. Layer the fruit cake between the two plain cakes, using jelly or white icing as filling.

  2. Press the layers lightly together.

  3. Trim the edges evenly.

  4. Cover with white 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.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Cinnamon + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

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

  4. Cinnamon + flourtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Mace + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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 as it bakes.
Butter
Creaming with sugar traps air and gives the cake a tender, rich texture.
Eggs
Yolks add richness and emulsify the batter, while whites add lift and structure.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps creaming trap air for a light crumb.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic cream of tartar to produce gas that makes the cake rise.
Citron
Adds candied fruit flavour and chewy texture to the fruit layer.

The step that matters

Fold in the well-beaten egg whites gently. Beaten whites hold air bubbles that help the cake rise. Vigorous stirring deflates them, leaving a denser layer that rises less evenly.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Clovefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, butter, cinnamon, egg, brandy, flour, 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.

You might also like

Molasses CookiesMolasses Cookies96 recipesMolasses CakeMolasses Cake90 recipesCinnamon RollsCinnamon Rolls71 recipesBrandy PeachesBrandy Peaches68 recipes