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Dessert

Carraway Seed Cake

A cake made with flour, sugar, milk, baking powder, butter, and caraway seeds.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Carraway 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.

Prepare the batter

  1. In a large bowl, mix the flour and sugar together.

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

  3. Pour in the lukewarm milk with dissolved baking powder.

  4. Cover the bowl with a clean cloth.

  5. Let it sit in a warm spot for 1 hour.

  6. Melt the butter until creamy.

  7. Add the melted butter and the caraway seeds to the mixture.

  8. Add more milk if necessary to achieve a smooth batter.

Bake

  1. Butter a large square or round cake tin.

  2. Pour the mixture into the tin.

  3. Bake for about 3 hours at 350°F (175°C).

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

All-purpose flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Butter
Adds richness and a tender crumb through fat coating the flour.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the cake rise and turn light.
White sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps it brown during baking.
Milk
Hydrates the flour and sugar to form a smooth, pourable batter.

The step that matters

Let the batter rest in a warm spot. The rest period lets the leavening begin working and the flour fully hydrate, which affects how well the cake rises and its texture. Keeping it covered and warm helps the batter stay active.

“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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