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Dessert

Ribbon Cake

A layered cake with light and dark layers, flavored with 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.

Make the batter

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

  2. Beat the butter until creamy.

  3. Gradually add the sugar while continuing to beat.

  4. Add flavoring (lemon or nutmeg).

  5. Beat the eggs until very light.

  6. Mix in the eggs and milk.

  7. Sift the flour and return it to the sieve.

  8. Mix the baking soda and cream of tartar with the flour.

  9. Sift the flour mixture into the bowl of beaten ingredients.

  10. Mix quickly until combined.

  11. Divide the batter into three equal parts.

Bake the layers

  1. Pour two parts into two sheet pans.

  2. Add cinnamon, currants, and citron to the remaining third of the batter.

  3. Pour the flavored batter into the last pan.

  4. Bake all three pans until done.

  5. Remove the cakes from the pans.

Fill and press

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

  2. Place the dark cake on top.

  3. Spread jelly on the top cake.

  4. Top with the remaining light cake.

  5. Cover with paper.

  6. Place a thin sheet with two weights on top.

  7. 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. 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
Add structure and richness, and help bind the batter together.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender crumb and rich flavour.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake's crumb together.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the cake brown and stay moist.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the batter to release gas, helping the cake rise.
Cream of tartar
Provides acidity that works with the baking soda to help the cake rise.

The step that matters

Mix the flour in quickly and only until combined. Overmixing develops gluten, which toughens the crumb and can make the layers dense. Stopping as soon as the batter is combined keeps the cake tender.

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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