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Dessert

Seed Cake

A yeasted cake made with flour, dripping, sugar, caraway seeds, egg, baking powder, and milk or water.

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

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the dough

  1. Sift the flour into a bowl.

  2. Rub the dripping into the flour.

  3. Stir in the sugar, baking powder, and caraway seeds.

  4. Beat the egg with the milk or water.

  5. Mix the wet mixture into the dry ingredients to form a dough.

  6. Beat the dough for 2-3 minutes.

Bake and cool

  1. Turn the mixture into a well-greased cake tin.

  2. Place the tin on a baking sheet.

  3. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) for 1.5 hours or until a skewer inserted in the center comes out clean.

  4. Carefully turn the cake out of the tin.

  5. Let it cool on a wire rack.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  4. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Dripping
Adds fat that tenderises the crumb and carries flavour.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps it brown during baking.
Egg
Binds the mixture and adds structure and richness.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the cake rises and becomes light.

The step that matters

Bake until a skewer comes out clean. Baking powder and flour set as the cake heats, and the centre can stay wet if the bake is cut short. Testing the centre with a skewer confirms the crumb has set through before cooling.

Swap the caraway

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

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

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