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Dessert

Pound Seed-cake

A dense cake made with caraway seeds, cinnamon, butter, brown sugar, flour, and hot treacle.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,341 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Pound Seed-cake

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the dough

  1. In a bowl, rub together the butter and brown sugar until creamy.

  2. Add the caraway seeds and ground cinnamon, mixing well.

  3. Gradually add the flour, mixing until combined.

  4. Stir in the hot treacle to form a paste.

Bake and glaze

  1. Pour the mixture into molds and bake until golden.

  2. For a glaze, dip the top into boiling water and beer after baking.

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. Cinnamon + flourtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Cinnamon + sugartop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Cinnamon + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,784 recipes

    Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).

Cinnamon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Butter
Creams with the sugar to add richness and a tender crumb.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps the cake brown when baked.
All-purpose flour
Provides the main structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Hot treacle
Adds sweetness, moisture and a deep flavour, and helps bind the paste.

The step that matters

Dip the top into boiling water and beer after baking. The glaze must be applied while the cake is still hot so the surface softens and absorbs the liquid evenly. Pouring it onto a cooled cake may leave it dull and uneven.

“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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