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Dessert

Ribbon Cake

A layered cake with butter, sugar, flour, eggs, and optional flavoring, cinnamon, currants, and citron, topped with jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,950 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. 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

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

  2. Beat the butter until creamy, then gradually add the sugar while continuing to beat.

  3. Add the flavoring.

  4. Beat the eggs until very light, then mix in the eggs and milk.

  5. Sift the flour, mix the baking soda and cream of tartar with the flour, then sift this into the bowl of beaten ingredients.

  6. Beat quickly to thoroughly mix, then stop.

Divide and bake

  1. Divide the batter into three equal portions.

  2. Pour two portions into two sheet pans.

  3. To the remaining portion, add cinnamon, currants, and citron, then pour into the last pan.

  4. Bake all three cakes until done.

  5. Once baked, remove from pans.

Assemble and press

  1. Spread a thin layer of jelly on the light cake while warm.

  2. Stack the dark cake on top, spread with jelly, then place the other light cake on top.

  3. Cover with paper and a thin sheet.

  4. Place two weights on top to press for about two hours.

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. Lemon + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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 as they set in the oven.
Butter
Adds fat and tenderness and carries flavor through the batter.
Flour
Forms the structure that holds the layers together once baked.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps it brown while creaming with the butter adds air.
Baking soda
Reacts with the cream of tartar to produce gas that lifts the layers.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the batter so it reacts with baking soda to help the cake rise.

The step that matters

Beat quickly to thoroughly mix, then stop. Once the flour is added, overbeating develops gluten and makes the cake tough, while the baking soda and cream of tartar begin reacting, so the batter should be mixed just until combined and baked promptly.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

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