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Dessert

Seed Cake

A yeast‑leavened cake made with flour, sugar, milk, butter, and spices including caraway, allspice, ginger, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,331 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Seed Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the dough

  1. Mix the sugar and flour in a large bowl.

  2. Make a hole in the center.

  3. Pour in the lukewarm milk and yeast.

  4. Draw some flour into the mixture.

  5. Cover with a cloth.

  6. Let it sit in a warm place for 1–2 hours.

Shape and bake

  1. Add the liquefied butter, caraway seeds, allspice, ginger, nutmeg, and enough milk to achieve a proper stiffness.

  2. Mix thoroughly.

  3. Butter a plain mold.

  4. Pour the mixture into the mold.

  5. Let it rise for 30 minutes at the mouth of the oven.

  6. Bake.

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. Allspice + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,331 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Allspice + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,620 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Caraway + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together200 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Ginger + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Flour + carawaytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,435 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
Forms the main structure of the cake as its gluten network sets in the oven.
Yeast
Produces gas as it ferments, making the dough rise and become light.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender crumb and rich flavor.
Lukewarm milk
Hydrates the flour and helps the yeast activate, giving the dough its moisture.
Pounded loaf sugar
Feeds the yeast and adds sweetness and browning to the crust.

The step that matters

Let the dough rise in a warm place. Yeast needs warmth to ferment properly. If the dough is too cold it rises slowly, and if it is overheated the yeast can die, so the cake may come out dense.

Swap the caraway

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, flour, milk, butter, allspice, ginger, nutmeg):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Clovefits better
  4. Carawaythe original

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