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Dessert

Ribbon Cake

A layered cake with butter, sugar, eggs, milk, pastry flour, baking powder, raisins, currants, citron, molasses, brandy or coffee, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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.

Prepare the batter

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

  2. Cream the butter.

  3. Gradually add the sugar.

  4. Beat the egg yolks until very light.

  5. Add the beaten yolks to the mixture.

  6. Add the flour and milk alternately.

  7. Fold in the stiffly beaten egg whites.

  8. Divide the batter into three parts.

Make the fruit layer

  1. Add the raisins, currants, citron, molasses, brandy or coffee, and spices to one part.

  2. Flour the fruit lightly.

  3. Bake the fruit layer separately.

Bake and assemble

  1. Bake the two plain layers in layer pans.

  2. Once baked, layer the fruit cake between the plain cakes.

  3. Spread white or pink icing or apple jelly between the layers.

  4. Press the layers lightly together.

  5. Trim the edges.

  6. Frost with white icing.

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. Raisin + curranttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Butter
Creaming with sugar traps air, giving the cake a tender, fine crumb and rich flavour.
Eggs
Yolks add richness and whites, folded in stiffly, lighten the batter and add structure.
Pastry flour
Provides the structure that holds the layers together once the batter sets in the oven.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking, helping the layers rise and turn light.
Raisins
Add chewy sweetness and moisture to the fruit layer.
Currants
Add small bursts of tart sweetness and moisture to the fruit layer.

The step that matters

Folding in the stiffly beaten egg whites. Stiff whites hold air that lightens the batter. Folding gently keeps that air in; stirring hard deflates it, leaving layers dense and flat.

Swap the currant

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

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

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