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Dessert

Ribbon Cake

Ribbon Cake is a layered cake made with eggs, butter, sugar, flour, raisins, currants, spices, milk, and leavening agents.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. 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

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

  2. In a large bowl, mix the eggs, butter, sugar, and flour until well combined.

Make the dark batter

  1. Take one-third of the mixture and add ½ cup flour, 1 egg, 1 tablespoon butter, raisins, currants, nutmeg, cinnamon, mace, and additional spices to taste.

  2. Pour the dark mixture into the center of the prepared jelly‑cake tins.

Bake and finish

  1. Bake until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.

  2. If desired, use frosting 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. Nutmeg + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  4. Raisin + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

  5. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake's crumb together as it bakes.
Eggs
Add structure and moisture, and help bind the batter.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender crumb and rich flavor.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps it brown during baking.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic components in the batter to produce gas that lifts the cake.
Milk
Adds moisture and helps hydrate the flour for a smooth batter.

The step that matters

Bake until a toothpick comes out clean. Baking until a toothpick comes out clean shows the cake's centre has set. Removing it too late lets moisture evaporate, leaving a dry, crumbly cake.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Lemonfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, butter, sugar, flour, raisin, nutmeg, 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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