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Dessert

Irish Seed Cake

A cake made with eggs, butter, rose water, powdered sugar, flour, rice flour, caraway seeds, bitter almonds, and an essence.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and almond are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,673 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Irish 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.

Prepare

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

  2. Beat the eggs until light.

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter and gradually add the rose water until ½ cup is used.

  2. Mix in the powdered sugar and beaten eggs.

  3. Dredge in the dried flour and rice flour.

  4. Add the essence, caraway seeds, and pounded bitter almonds.

Bake

  1. Line a baking tin with buttered paper and pour in the mixture.

  2. Bake for 1.5 hours.

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 + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Rice + almondtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,456 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Butter + almondtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Beaten eggs add structure and lift to the cake's crumb as they set.
Fresh butter
Creaming with butter traps air and adds richness and a tender texture.
Powdered sugar
Fine sugar dissolves easily into the batter, adding sweetness and helping browning.
Dried flour
Wheat flour provides the main structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Rice flour
Rice flour adds a lighter, more delicate crumb than wheat flour alone.
Rose water
Liquid that flavours the batter and adds aroma.

The step that matters

Creaming the butter with the rose water. Beating the butter until it is light and fluffy traps air that helps the cake rise. Adding the rose water gradually keeps the mixture from splitting or becoming greasy.

Swap the caraway

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, butter, rose, sugar, flour, rice, almond. 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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