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Dessert

Seed Cakes

Seed Cakes are sweet cakes made with eggs, butter, powdered sugar, flour, caraway seeds, almonds, cinnamon, and mace.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,514 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Seed Cakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA brisk oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a brisk oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the eggs

  1. Break the eggs into a copper pan and whisk for 10 minutes.

  2. Add the powdered sugar to the eggs and whisk over gentle heat until just warm.

  3. Remove from heat and whisk until cold.

Make the batter

  1. In another bowl, beat the butter to a cream.

  2. Mix in the butter lightly with your hand.

  3. Add the caraway seeds, cut sweet almonds, cinnamon, and mace.

  4. Gently mix in the flour with your hand.

Bake

  1. Prepare a hoop with three sheets of paper inside and five or six at the bottom.

  2. Bake in a brisk oven at 400°F (200°C) for 1.5 to 2 hours, covering with paper if it browns too much.

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. Almond + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,514 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Almond + flourtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Caraway + cinnamontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together188 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Caraway + flourtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,435 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Caraway + almondtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together84 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

Eggs
Whisked to trap air, giving the cake its light, risen structure.
Butter
Creamed to add richness and a tender, fine crumb.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the batter and dissolves easily into the whisked eggs.
Flour
Sets the structure of the cake as it bakes.
Caraway seeds
Provide the signature aromatic flavour of seed cake.

The step that matters

Whisking the eggs after warming. Whisking the eggs over gentle heat only until just warm, then whisking until cold, keeps them thick and airy. Overheating can scramble the eggs, and cooling them fully before adding the flour helps the batter hold the air needed for a light rise.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Turmericfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, butter, sugar, caraway, almond, cinnamon, flour. 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.

More seed cakes recipes

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