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Dessert

Ribbon Cake

A layered cake made with butter, sugar, flour, eggs, milk, cinnamon, currants, citron, and jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. 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 your choice of flavoring (lemon or nutmeg).

  4. Beat the eggs until very light, then add them along with the milk.

  5. Sift the flour and return it to the sieve, mixing the baking soda and cream of tartar with it.

  6. Sift the flour mixture into the bowl of beaten ingredients and mix quickly and vigorously.

Divide and bake

  1. Divide the batter into three equal parts.

  2. Pour two parts into two sheet pans.

  3. In the remaining third of the batter, mix in the cinnamon, currants, and chopped citron.

  4. Pour into the last pan.

  5. Bake all three cakes until done, then remove from pans.

Assemble and press

  1. While warm, spread a thin layer of jelly on the light cakes.

  2. Stack them with the dark cake in between.

  3. Cover with another light cake.

  4. Place a paper over the top.

  5. Weigh it down with two irons 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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  5. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Beaten until very light, they add structure and lift to the batter.
Butter
Beaten with the sugar, it traps air and gives the cake a tender crumb.
Sugar
Creamed with the butter, it adds sweetness and helps give the cake its texture.
All-purpose flour
Its proteins set during baking, forming the cake's main structure.
Baking soda
Reacts with the cream of tartar to release gas, helping the cakes rise.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the batter so it reacts with the baking soda to lighten the crumb.

The step that matters

Mixing the flour mixture into the batter. Mixing quickly and vigorously keeps the batter light, but overmixing develops gluten and can make the cakes tough. Working fast preserves the air and the leavening reaction.

Swap the currant

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. Currantthe 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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