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Dessert

Seed Cake, Rich

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 ↓

Seed Cake, Rich

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 the batter

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

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

  3. Separate the egg whites and yolks.

  4. Beat the egg whites and yolks separately.

  5. Combine the egg yolks with the butter and sugar mixture.

  6. Gently fold in the egg whites.

Bake

  1. Add the flour, spices, and caraway seeds, and mix just until combined.

  2. Pour the batter into a prepared baking pan.

  3. Bake for 2 hours or until a toothpick comes out clean.

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

All-purpose flour
Provides the starch and gluten network that gives the cake its structure.
Unsalted butter
Adds fat for tenderness and a rich, creamy crumb.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the batter and helps create a fine, tender texture.
Eggs
Add structure when set by heat, and richness and moisture from the yolks.
Caraway seeds
Contribute the signature aroma and flavor of the cake.

The step that matters

Fold in the egg whites gently. Beaten egg whites hold air that leavens the batter. Vigorous stirring knocks that air out, producing a dense, heavy cake instead of a light one.

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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