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Dessert

Ribbon Cake

A layered cake made with sugar, butter, milk, flour, baking powder, molasses, raisins, citron, wine or brandy, cinnamon, and cloves.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 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 together the sugar and butter.

  3. Add the milk, 2 cups of flour, and 2 teaspoons of baking powder; mix well.

  4. Divide the batter into three parts and bake two layers.

Make the dark layer

  1. For the dark layer, mix the remaining ingredients: ½ cup molasses, 1 cup flour, raisins, citron, wine or brandy, cinnamon, cloves, and 1 teaspoon baking powder.

  2. Bake the dark layer in jelly cake tins.

Assemble

  1. Once baked, layer the cakes with jelly between them, placing the dark layer in the middle.

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. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  3. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  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

Molasses
Adds dark colour and a deep, slightly bitter sweetness to the dark layer.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the layers rise and become light.
Butter
Creamed with sugar to trap air and add richness and tenderness.
Raisins
Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness to the dark layer.
Flour
Forms the cake's structure once the batter is baked.

The step that matters

Mixing the dark layer's baking powder and molasses. Molasses is acidic and heavy, so the baking powder must be evenly mixed through the batter; uneven mixing leaves dense or patchy spots as the layer rises.

Swap the raisin

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, milk, flour, molasses, wine, 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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