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Dessert

Plain Seed Cake

A baked cake made with dough, sugar, lard, eggs, and caraway seeds.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 122,807 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Plain 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.

Cream and beat

  1. Cream the lard in a mixing bowl.

  2. Beat the egg whites and yolks separately until fluffy.

Combine and fold

  1. Combine the creamed lard, sugar, and egg yolks.

  2. Fold in the beaten egg whites and caraway seeds.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into a greased baking pan.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until golden.

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. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  2. Sugar + carawaytop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,409 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  3. Egg + carawaytop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,012 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
Whites trap air for lift and structure, while yolks add richness and tenderness.
Lard
Creaming with lard adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and carries flavor.
Moist sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps the crust brown during baking.
Caraway seeds
Provide the distinctive aroma and flavor that defines the cake.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. Beaten whites hold air bubbles that give the cake its lift. Stirring them in vigorously deflates the foam, leaving a denser, heavier cake, so fold gently until just combined.

Swap the caraway

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, egg):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg. 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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