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Dessert

A Small Rich Seed Cake

A cake made with eggs, butter, powdered sugar, flour, caraway seeds, almonds, cinnamon, and mace.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,514 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

A Small Rich Seed Cake

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the batter

  1. Break the eggs into a copper pan and whisk for 10 minutes.

  2. Rub the butter into a cream in a bowl.

  3. Add the powdered sugar to the eggs and whisk over low heat for 3 minutes.

  4. Continue whisking until the mixture is cold.

  5. Mix the egg mixture with the butter gently by hand.

  6. Add the caraway seeds, chopped almonds, cinnamon, and mace.

  7. Fold in the flour gently by hand.

Bake

  1. Line the baking pan with parchment paper, placing 3 sheets inside and 4-5 at the bottom.

  2. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  3. Bake for about 1.5 to 2 hours, covering with paper if the top gets too hot.

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. Almond + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,514 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Almond + flourtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Caraway + cinnamontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together188 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Caraway + flourtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,435 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Caraway + almondtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together84 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Whisked to foam, they trap air and give the cake its light, risen structure.
Butter
Creamed butter adds richness and a tender crumb.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the batter and helps create a fine, even texture when whisked with the eggs.
Flour
Provides the starch and gluten network that sets the cake's structure as it bakes.
Caraway seeds
Contribute the distinctive aromatic flavour that defines this cake.

The step that matters

Continue whisking until the mixture is cold. Whisking the eggs and sugar over low heat must be followed by cooling while still whisking, so the foam stays stable and does not scramble or collapse before the butter and flour are folded in.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Turmericfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, butter, sugar, caraway, almond, cinnamon, flour. 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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