Skip to main content
Dessert

Ribbon Cake

A layered cake with plain and dark layers, made with butter, sugar, eggs, milk, flour, baking soda, cream of tartar, molasses, raisins, currants, and citron.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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.

Make the light batter

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

  2. Beat the butter and sugar together until creamy.

  3. Add the eggs and milk, and mix well.

  4. Gradually add the flour, baking soda, and cream of tartar, and mix until smooth.

  5. Pour the batter into jelly-cake tins.

  6. Bake until golden.

Make the dark batter

  1. Mix the remaining batter with molasses, raisins, currants, citron, and enough flour to stiffen.

  2. Bake the dark layers in the same manner.

Assemble

  1. Once cooled, alternate layers of plain and dark cake.

  2. Spread icing or jelly between the layers.

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

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Creams with sugar to trap air, giving the cake a tender, rich crumb.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps it brown while creaming aerates the batter.
Eggs
Provide structure and richness, setting as the cake bakes.
All-purpose flour
Forms the main structure of the cake as its proteins set in the oven.
Baking soda
Reacts with the cream of tartar to produce gas that lightens the batter.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the batter, activating the baking soda so the cake rises.

The step that matters

Adding the dry ingredients and mixing until smooth. Baking soda and cream of tartar must be fully combined into the batter to release gas evenly; uneven mixing leaves pockets of bitter soda or a coarse, uneven rise.

Swap the raisin

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

  1. Vanillafits about as well
  2. Raisinthe original
  3. Figfits less well
  4. Strawberryfits less well

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

You might also like

Molasses CookiesMolasses Cookies96 recipesMolasses CakeMolasses Cake90 recipesRed Currant JellyRed Currant Jelly65 recipesCurrant Ice CreamCurrant Ice Cream32 recipes