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Dessert

Seed Luncheon Cake

A baked cake made with flour, butter, sugar, caraway seeds, milk, and egg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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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 ↓

Seed Luncheon Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderately hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the batter

  1. Sift the flour and Paisley flour (or baking powder) into a bowl.

  2. Rub in the butter thoroughly.

  3. Add the sugar and caraway seeds.

  4. In another bowl, beat the egg and mix in ¾ cup of the milk.

  5. Combine all ingredients into a soft paste, adding more milk if necessary.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into a greased cake tin lined with greased paper.

  2. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) for about 1 hour, lowering the heat slightly after the first 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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 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
Forms the main structure of the cake as its starch sets during baking.
Butter
Rubbed into the flour to add tenderness and richness to the crumb.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the crust brown as the cake bakes.
Egg
Binds the mixture and adds structure as it sets in the oven.
Milk
Adds moisture and loosens the mixture into a soft paste.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the wet batter, helping the cake rise in the oven.

The step that matters

Mixing the baking powder into the batter. Baking powder starts releasing gas once it meets liquid, so the batter should go into the tin and oven promptly. A long wait can leave the cake flat and dense.

“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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