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 ↓
Seed Cakes, Cheap
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
Rub the sweet dripping into the flour.
Add the salt, mixed spice, caraway seeds, and sugar; mix thoroughly.
Make and bake
Dissolve the carbonate of soda in the milk and set it in the oven until dissolved.
Let the milk cool slightly, then add the vinegar and stir into the mixture.
Beat the mixture well, pour it into a buttered hoop, and bake at 350°F (175°C) for one hour.
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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Flour + carawaytop 6% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together1,435 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + milktop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together20,806 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together77,875 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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 main structure as its proteins and starch set during baking.
- Sweet dripping
- Adds fat that makes the crumb tender and rich.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the cake and helps it brown.
- Milk
- Adds moisture and dissolves the soda so it mixes evenly.
- Carbonate of soda
- Reacts with the acid to release gas that makes the cake rise.
- Vinegar
- Supplies the acid that activates the soda for lift.
The step that matters
Adding the vinegar and baking promptly. Carbonate of soda reacts with acid to release carbon dioxide, which lifts the cake. Once the vinegar is stirred in, that gas starts forming and escapes if the batter waits too long before it goes into the oven.
Swap the caraway
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, sugar, milk, vinegar):
- Cinnamonfits better
- Jalapenofits better
- Nutmegfits about as well
- Carawaythe original
Fit is the average pairing score against flour, sugar, milk, vinegar. 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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