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Bread

Ribbon Cake

A layered cake made with pastry flour, butter, sugar, water, egg whites, chocolate, fruit coloring, rose extract, lemon extract, raisins, glace cherries, pecans, and icing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 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. Sift together the flour and baking powder three times.

  3. Cream the butter and sugar together.

  4. Add the water and flour mixture to the creamed mixture.

  5. Fold in the beaten egg whites gently.

  6. Divide the batter into three parts.

Flavor and bake the layers

  1. To the first part, add melted chocolate and vanilla.

  2. To the second part, add a little fruit coloring and rose extract.

  3. Leave the third part white and flavor with lemon.

  4. Bake the layers until done.

Make the filling and icing

  1. For the filling and icing, boil sugar and water until it spins a thread.

  2. Gradually beat the syrup into the beaten egg whites.

  3. When cold, spread some frosting over the fruit and nuts between the layers.

  4. Frost the top with the remaining 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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Sugar + chocolatetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Rose + lemontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,174 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Flour and butter 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

Pastry flour
Provides the structure that holds the layers together after baking.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the layers rise and stay light.
Butter
Adds richness and tenderness to the crumb.
Egg whites
Whipped into the batter and icing to add lift and a light, airy texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and, boiled with water, forms the syrup for the icing.

The step that matters

Gradually beat the syrup into the beaten egg whites. Pouring hot syrup in slowly while beating keeps the cooked egg white foam stable and glossy; adding it all at once can deflate the foam or cook it unevenly.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, sugar, butter, egg, chocolate, rose, raisin. 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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