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Dessert

To Make a Rich Seed Cake

A dense cake made with flour, butter, sugar, eggs, caraway seeds, nutmeg, and cinnamon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

To Make a Rich Seed Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Preheat your oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Beat the butter until creamy. Add the sugar and mix well.

  3. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites for 30 minutes.

  4. Combine the beaten egg whites with the sugar and butter mixture.

  5. Beat the egg yolks for 30 minutes.

  6. Add the beaten yolks to the mixture.

  7. Gradually mix in the flour, spices, and caraway seeds just before baking.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the batter into a prepared cake pan.

  2. Bake for 2 hours.

  3. Let the cake stand for 2 hours before serving.

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. Caraway + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together200 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Flour + carawaytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,435 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  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

Eggs
Whipped whites and yolks add lift and an airy, light crumb to the cake.
Butter
Creamed with sugar, it gives the cake richness, tenderness and a fine texture.
All-purpose flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Granulated sugar
Sweetens the cake and, creamed with butter, helps trap air for a lighter texture.
Caraway seeds
Add a distinctive aromatic flavour that defines this seed cake.

The step that matters

Gradually mix in the flour, spices, and caraway seeds just before baking.. Once flour is added, mixing too much develops gluten and toughens the cake. Folding gently and baking promptly keeps the crumb tender and preserves the air beaten into the eggs.

Swap the caraway

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

  1. Cardamomfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Clovefits better
  4. Carawaythe original

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