Name: English Seed Cake
Ingredients: 1 pound flour; ½ pound butter; ½ pound sugar; 2 eggs, well beaten; ½ pound caraway seeds or ½ pound raisins; a little candied orange peel; enough milk to make a thin dough

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 ↓

English 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 the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the dough

In a large bowl, mix the flour, butter, sugar, and beaten eggs until well combined.
Add the caraway seeds or raisins and candied orange peel.
Gradually add milk until a thin dough forms.
Divide the mixture into 2 pans.

Bake

Bake for 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.

Flour + carawaytop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,435 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Caraway + orangetop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together158 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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: Provides the main structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Butter: Adds richness and tenderness, and helps give the crumb its soft texture.
Sugar: Sweetens the cake and helps brown its crust during baking.
Eggs: Bind the batter and add structure and richness to the crumb.
Milk: Adds moisture and loosens the mixture into a thin dough.

The step that matters

Gradually add milk until a thin dough forms. Adding milk slowly lets you judge the consistency, since too much liquid at once can make the dough too thin and weaken its structure.

Swap the orange

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

Raisinfits better
Vanillafits better
Figfits better
Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, sugar, egg, caraway, milk. 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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English Seed Cake