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Dessert

Seed Cake

A baked cake made with eggs, butter, sugar, flour, caraway seeds, baking soda, cream of tartar, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).

Make the batter

  1. Beat the eggs in a bowl, then mix in the melted butter and sugar.

  2. Add the flour, caraway seeds, baking soda, and cream of tartar.

  3. Stir in enough milk to create a thick batter.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased baking pan.

  2. Bake for 45 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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

Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as they set in the oven.
Butter
Adds richness and tenderness to the crumb.
All-purpose flour
Provides the main structure that sets the cake as it bakes.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the batter to produce gas that helps it rise.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the batter and works with baking soda to help it rise.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps keep the crumb moist and tender.

The step that matters

Stirring in the milk. The batter should be thick, not runny. Too much liquid thins the batter so the cake may bake up dense or flat, while the flour must be fully hydrated to set properly.

Swap the caraway

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, butter, sugar, flour, cream, 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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