Name: Ribbon Cake
Ingredients: 1 to 2 cups sugar; ½ cup butter; 3 eggs; 1 cup water; 2 teaspoons baking powder; Flour to thicken; 2 heaping tablespoons red sugar sand; 4 tablespoons grated chocolate

Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 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.

Prepare the batter

Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Cream together the sugar and butter.
Add the eggs and water, mixing well.
Stir in the baking powder and enough flour to thicken the batter.

Divide and flavor

Divide the mixture into three equal parts.
Bake the first part plain for the top layer.
To the second part, add the red sugar sand and beat until dissolved.
Mix the third part with the grated chocolate.

Assemble

Layer the baked cakes with your desired filling.

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.

Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Sugar + chocolatetop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together15,404 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together92,116 recipes

Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together106,462 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter + chocolatetop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together10,543 recipes

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

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 and moisture as they set in the oven.
Butter: Adds richness and a tender crumb.
Sugar: Sweetens the batter and helps it brown and stay tender.
Baking powder: Releases gas in the heat so the cake rises and becomes light.
Flour: Thickens the batter and provides the structure that holds the cake together.
Grated chocolate: Adds chocolate flavor and color to the third layer.

“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.