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Dessert

Irish Seed Cake

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

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 moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Butter a cake tin and line it with buttered paper.

Make the batter

  1. Beat the butter to a cream and gradually mix in the rose water, one tablespoon at a time.

  2. Add the sifted loaf sugar and mix well.

  3. Incorporate the beaten eggs, followed by the all-purpose flour and rice flour.

  4. Stir in the pounded almonds, essence of lemon, and caraway seeds until well combined.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into the prepared tin and bake for about 1 hour and 30 minutes.

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

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

  3. Almond + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

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

  5. Rose + almondtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,465 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Creams with sugar to trap air and give a tender, rich crumb.
Eggs
Provide structure and lift as the batter sets in the oven.
All-purpose flour
Forms the main structure of the cake crumb.
Rice flour
Adds a finer, more delicate texture to the crumb.
Pounded almonds
Add moisture, richness and a tender texture to the cake.
Loaf sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps create a light, creamed texture with the butter.

The step that matters

Beat the butter to a cream. Beating softened butter with sugar traps air in the fat, which gives the cake lift and a fine crumb. Under-beating leaves a dense cake, and the air trapped here is what the rising depends on.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, rose, sugar, egg, 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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