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Dessert

Ribbon Cake

A layered cake with a light and a dark section, flavored with molasses, raisins, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Make the batter

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

  2. In a bowl, cream together the sugar and butter until light and fluffy.

  3. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition.

  4. Stir in the milk and dissolve the Magic Soda in it, or use the baking powder.

  5. Mix in the flour and salt until just combined.

  6. Divide the batter in half and pour half into two oblong pans.

Make the dark batter

  1. To the remaining batter, add molasses, raisins, cinnamon, cloves, allspice, nutmeg, and flour.

  2. Pour this mixture into two pans of the same size.

Bake and assemble

  1. Bake for 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

  2. Once baked, layer the light and dark cakes with jelly or raspberry jam while warm.

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

Butter
Creams with sugar to trap air, giving the cake a light, tender crumb.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, binding the batter as the cake sets in the oven.
Flour
Forms the cake's structure as its proteins set during baking.
Magic soda
Releases gas when dissolved in the milk, lifting the batter so the cakes rise.
Molasses
Adds moisture, dark colour and a deep sweetness to the dark batter.
Raisins
Add chewy pockets of fruit sweetness to the dark layers.

The step that matters

Stir in the milk and dissolve the Magic Soda fully. Leavening gas forms as soon as the soda meets the liquid, so the batter should go into the pans and oven promptly to keep the rise even.

“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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