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Dessert

Seed or Fruit Cake

A cake made with eggs, butter, flour, milk, sugar, baking soda, cream of tartar, lemon essence, and either caraway seeds or mixed fruit.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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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 ↓

Seed or Fruit Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA good oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the batter

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

  2. In a bowl, cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.

  3. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition.

  4. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, and cream of tartar.

  5. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, alternating with the milk.

Add flavouring and bake

  1. If making seed cake, fold in the caraway seeds; for fruit cake, fold in the mixed fruit.

  2. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan.

  3. Bake for about 1 hour for a large cake or 30 minutes for small cakes, until a toothpick comes out clean.

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 + carawaytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,435 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  5. Lemon + carawaytop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together270 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness as they set in the oven.
Butter
Adds fat and tenderness, and creaming with sugar traps air for a lighter crumb.
Flour
Forms the cake's main structure once it sets during baking.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps create a soft, aerated texture when creamed with butter.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic cream of tartar to produce gas that makes the cake rise.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the batter so it reacts with baking soda, helping the cake rise and stay tender.

The step that matters

Adding the dry ingredients gradually, alternating with the milk. Adding flour in portions alongside the milk keeps the batter smooth and well emulsified. Overmixing once flour is in develops gluten, which can make the cake tough.

Swap the caraway

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Tarragonfits about as well
  4. Carawaythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, butter, flour, milk, sugar, cream, lemon. 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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