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Dessert

Seed Cake

Seed Cake is a yeast‑leavened cake made with flour, sugar, milk, butter, caraway seeds, allspice, ginger, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,331 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Seed Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. Mix the sugar and flour in a large bowl.

  2. Make a hole in the center of the mixture.

  3. Pour in the lukewarm milk and yeast.

  4. Draw some flour into the mixture.

  5. Cover the mixture with a cloth.

  6. Let the mixture rise in a warm place for 1–2 hours.

Mix and shape

  1. Add the liquefied butter, caraway seeds, allspice, ginger, and enough milk to achieve a proper stiffness. Mix thoroughly.

  2. Butter a mold.

  3. Pour the mixture into the mold.

Bake

  1. Let it stand for 30 minutes at the mouth of the oven to rise.

  2. Bake.

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. Allspice + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,331 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Allspice + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,620 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Caraway + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together200 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Ginger + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

All-purpose flour
Forms the main structure of the dough as its proteins and starches set in baking.
Yeast
Produces gas as it ferments, making the dough rise before baking.
Butter
Adds richness and tenderness, softening the crumb as it is distributed through the dough.
Caraway seeds
Contribute the characteristic aromatic flavor that defines a seed cake.
Lukewarm milk
Hydrates the flour and dissolves the yeast, giving the dough its moisture and workable texture.
Pounded loaf sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps brown the crust as it bakes.

The step that matters

Let the mixture rise in a warm place. Yeast needs warmth to ferment and produce the gas that raises the dough. If the dough is too cold it rises slowly, and the cake may come out dense.

Swap the caraway

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, flour, milk, butter, allspice, ginger, nutmeg):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Clovefits better
  4. Carawaythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, flour, milk, butter, allspice, ginger, nutmeg. 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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