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Dessert

Ribbon Cake

A layered cake with a white batter and a dark fruit batter, topped with currant jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 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

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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Make the batter

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

  2. In a large bowl, cream together the sugar and butter until light and fluffy.

  3. Add the milk and eggs, mixing well.

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

  5. Take out 1/3 of the batter and set aside for the fruit layer.

  6. To the reserved batter, add the raisins, molasses, cloves, cinnamon, and nutmeg, mixing until combined.

Bake and assemble

  1. Pour the white batter into two greased cake pans and the dark batter into one.

  2. Bake for 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

  3. Once cooled, layer the cakes with currant jelly in between.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as the cake sets in the oven.
Butter
Adds richness and tenderness, and helps trap air when creamed with sugar.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps create a light, tender crumb when creamed.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the cake as it bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the cake rises and becomes light.
Raisins
Add chewy texture and sweetness to the dark fruit batter.

The step that matters

Adding the flour and baking powder. Mixing in the flour gradually and only until combined keeps the batter smooth. Overmixing develops gluten, which can make the cake dense and tough.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Datesfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

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