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Dessert

Carraway Seed Cake

A sweet cake made with flour, sugar, butter, milk, eggs, baking powder, citron, lemon rind, and caraway seeds.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and caraway match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,435 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Carraway Seed Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the batter

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

  2. In a bowl, combine flour, sugar, and butter, then rub the mixture together until it resembles bread crumbs.

  3. Add caraway seeds, citron, and baking powder to the mixture.

  4. In a separate bowl, beat the eggs until light, then mix the milk into the beaten eggs.

  5. Quickly combine all ingredients.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a well-buttered cake tin.

  2. Bake for about 1 hour.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Lemon + carawaytop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together270 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 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

Flour
Forms the structure of the cake as its gluten sets during baking.
Butter
Rubbed into the flour to give a tender, rich crumb and fat for flavour.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness as they set in the oven.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the cake rises and becomes light.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the cake brown lightly at the surface.

The step that matters

Quickly combine all ingredients. Once the baking powder is mixed with liquid it begins releasing gas, so the batter should be combined and put into the tin without delay to keep the rise strong.

Swap the caraway

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Parsleyfits about as well
  4. Carawaythe original

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