Name: A Cheap Seed Cake
Ingredients: 6 cups all-purpose flour; 1 ½ cups butter; 2 cups whole milk; 1 pound sugar; ½ ounce ground allspice; ½ pint good ale yeast; currants or caraway seeds (optional)

Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

A Cheap 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 the batter

Melt the butter and milk in a saucepan over medium heat.
In a large bowl, mix the flour, sugar, and ground allspice.
Pour the melted butter and milk into the flour mixture and stir until a paste forms.
Add the ale yeast and mix well.

Rise and bake

Let the mixture rise in a warm place.
Fold in currants or caraway seeds just before baking, if desired.
Preheat the oven to 400 °F (200 °C) and bake the batter in two cake pans for 1½ 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.

Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Allspice + curranttop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,359 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl benzoate (fruity, sweet).
Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + allspicetop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,302 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

All-purpose flour: Provides the starch and gluten structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Butter: Adds fat for a tender crumb and rich flavour.
Whole milk: Adds moisture and milk proteins that help the crumb set and brown.
Sugar: Adds sweetness and helps the crust brown during baking.
Ale yeast: Ferments the batter so it rises and becomes lighter in texture.

The step that matters

Letting the mixture rise. Yeast needs a warm place to ferment; if the batter stays cold it will rise slowly or not at all, leaving a dense cake.

Swap the currant

The recipe marks currant as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, butter, milk, sugar, allspice):

Vanillafits better
Raisinfits better
Figfits better
Currantthe original

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