Seed Cakes
Five cups flour, two cups sugar, one cup butter, one-half cup thick sour milk, one teaspoon soda, one tablespoon caraway seed; roll out thin and bake well.
This is a rolled seed cookie rather than a cake in the modern sense — the dough is stiff, sheeted thin, and cut like shortbread. The one thing to get right is the hydration: as written the dough will barely come together.
- The liquid is the problemFive cups of flour with one cup of butter and half a cup of sour milk gives a dough drier than most modern cookie doughs. Add sour milk a spoonful at a time until the dough is cohesive but still firm; you may need noticeably more than the stated half cup.
- Thick sour milkThis means naturally soured raw milk, thickened to a clabber. Full-fat buttermilk is the closest substitute; plain whole-milk yogurt thinned slightly with milk also works. Do not use fresh milk with the soda, or the cakes may taste soapy.
- Soda and acidOne teaspoon of soda is the leavening, and it needs the acid in the sour milk to work. Mix the soda into the flour rather than dissolving it in the milk, and get the sheets into the oven reasonably promptly.
- Oven temperature"Bake well" for thin rolled cakes means a moderate to moderately hot oven, 350–375°F. Six to ten minutes is usually enough; they are done when the edges color and the surface loses its wet sheen.
- How thin is thinAbout 1/8 inch. Thicker and the low liquid content makes them hard rather than crisp. Cut with a plain round cutter and dock or prick the tops if they blister.
- CarawayA tablespoon in this quantity of dough is assertive but period-correct. Crush the seeds lightly or warm them in a dry pan first if you want the flavor rounder and less woody.
- YieldThe full batch is large; the exact count depends on how thin you roll and the size of the cutter, but expect well over a hundred two-inch cakes. Halving it is sensible for a modern household. They should keep for some time in a tin.
Seed cake, meaning cake flavored with caraway, is one of the oldest sweet baked goods in the English tradition, and by the nineteenth century it had split into two forms: a rich loaf cake eaten with wine, and thin rolled biscuits like these, made from a stiff dough and said to keep well in a tin. Caraway was cheap, kept indefinitely, and was long considered good for the digestion. The reliance on sour milk and soda rather than eggs and beaten butter marks this as a thrifty farm-kitchen version household household wanted to waste, and pairing it with saleratus or soda was the standard American shortcut to leavening before baking powder became cheap and universal.