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Dessert

Ribbon Cake

A spiced cake with raisins and citron, divided into layers and baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. 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. Cream together the sugar and butter.

  3. Add the milk and eggs, mixing well.

  4. In a separate bowl, combine the flour and baking powder, then add to the wet mixture.

  5. Divide the batter into three parts.

  6. To one part, add the cinnamon, cloves, allspice, nutmeg, black molasses, raisins, citron, and grated chocolate.

Bake and assemble

  1. Pour the plain batter into two cake pans and the spiced batter into one.

  2. Bake in three layers until a toothpick comes out clean.

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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Creams with the sugar to add fat and a tender crumb.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as the cake sets.
Flour
Forms the cake's structure once baked.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the layers rise.
Black molasses
Adds moisture, dark colour and a deep, sweet flavour to the spiced layer.

The step that matters

Bake in three layers until a toothpick comes out clean.. The plain and spiced batters are baked together in separate pans, so each layer can finish at a different pace. Testing with a toothpick shows when the centre is set; underbaking leaves wet, sunken layers, while overbaking dries them out.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cardamomfits about as well
  3. Clovethe original
  4. Gingerfits less well

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