Why it works: Orange and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓
Seed 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
Preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C).
Mix the flour and sugar together and set aside to dry.
Make the batter
Beat the butter by hand until it becomes a soft cream, about 1 hour.
In a separate bowl, beat the egg yolks and whites separately, then strain and combine with the butter.
Add the orange‑flower water and brandy, and beat again.
Gradually mix in the flour and sugar, along with the caraway seeds, while beating continuously for about 2 hours.
Bake
Butter a cake pan, line the bottom with parchment paper, and pour in the batter.
If desired, add candied citron, lemon, and orange peel before baking.
Bake for 3 hours in the preheated oven.
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.
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Orange + lemontop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together10,634 recipes
Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
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Flour + carawaytop 6% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together1,435 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Caraway + lemontop 10% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together270 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Caraway + orangetop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together158 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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
- Eggs
- Whipped yolks and whites add lift and structure to the batter.
- Butter
- Creamed with sugar, it traps air and gives the cake its tender, rich crumb.
- All-purpose flour
- Provides the starch and gluten that set the cake's structure as it bakes.
- White sugar
- Sweetens the cake and helps the butter cream to a soft, aerated texture.
- Caraway seeds
- Contribute the signature aromatic flavor of the cake.
The step that matters
Beating the butter and egg mixture. Creaming butter until light and then beating in the flour gradually keeps the batter aerated and evenly mixed. Adding flour too quickly or under-beating can leave dense or streaky cake.
Swap the orange
The recipe marks orange as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, sugar, butter, egg, caraway, brandy, lemon):
- Raisinfits better
- Vanillafits better
- Figfits about as well
- Orangethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against flour, sugar, butter, egg, caraway, brandy, lemon. 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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