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Seed Cake, Family, Made from Dough
No. 1.--Take a quartern of dough left from making bread. Set it in a basin, covered with a cloth, before the fire to rise. Beat half a pound of butter or dripping to cream; work this into the dough, and add three-quarters of a pound of moist sugar, an ounce of caraway-seeds, and a well-beaten egg. Knead the dough well; put it into one large or two moderate-sized buttered baking-tins, let it stand before the fire to rise, and bake in a well-heated oven. Time, about two hours for one cake. Probable cost, if made with dripping, about 4d. per pound. No. 2.--Take a quartern of dough. Spread it out on a pastry-board, and slice half a pound of lard, butter, or dripping over it. Sprinkle on it a heaped tea-spoonful of baking-powder, add eight ounces of moist sugar, two ounces of caraway-seeds, and two ounces of finely-shredded candied peel. Knead the dough till the ingredients are thoroughly blended. Set it before the fire to rise for a short time, put it into greased tins, and bake in a well-heated oven. Time to bake, one to two hours, according to the size of the cakes. No. 3.--Take a quartern of dough. Spread it on a floured pastry-board, slice half a pound of fresh butter upon it, and work this in, together with a tea-spoonful of salt, half an ounce of caraway-seeds, half a pound of good moist sugar, and six eggs put in singly. When the ingredients are thoroughly blended, put the dough into two or more well-buttered tins, and place them before the fire for a short time. When the dough is light, put the cakes in a well-heated oven, and bake until they are done enough. No. 4.-Put two pounds of flour into a bowl, and mix with it half a tea-spoonful of salt, eight ounces of powdered sugar, two table-spoonfuls of caraway-seeds, and a quarter of a pint of fresh yeast. Knead the dough thoroughly, and work into it half a pound of butter which has been dissolved in half a pint of milk. Throw a cloth over the bowl, and set it in a warm place to rise. Put it into a buttered mould, and bake in a well-heated oven. Spices may be added to these cakes, if liked. Time to bake, about one hour.
Four versions of the same idea: enrich a lump of ordinary bread dough with fat, sugar and caraway and bake it as a cake. The quantities are Victorian household scale, so read the notes on the quartern before you start.
- A quartern of doughA "quartern" was the standard household baking measure of flour (a quarter of a peck, about 3.5 lb, baked as the 4 lb quartern loaf), so a quartern of dough is several pounds of it. All four recipes are therefore family-sized: No. 1 fills one large or two moderate tins, No. 3 two or more. Halve or quarter throughout for a single tin.
- Moist sugarVictorian "moist sugar" is unrefined soft brown sugar, damp and clumping. Light soft brown sugar is the closest modern equivalent; the flavour is part of the point, so granulated white is a poor swap.
- Dripping and lardBeef dripping was the everyday baking fat and gives a savoury edge that reads oddly now. Butter is the safest choice; lard makes a shorter, more lardy-cake texture.
- A well-heated ovenFor an enriched yeasted dough this is usually taken to mean around 375-400F (190-200C). The stated two hours suits a very large cake in a solid-fuel oven; a 2 lb loaf-tin cake should be done in 45-60 minutes at 375F, and an internal temperature of 190-200F is a better guide than the clock.
- The quarter-pint of yeast in No. 4This is liquid brewer's barm, not modern yeast, and there is no reliable conversion. For 2 lb of flour use about 2 teaspoons instant dried yeast or 1 oz fresh, and add the milk in full.
- Caraway quantitiesTwo ounces of caraway in No. 2 is roughly eight tablespoons through a quartern of dough, which is assertive but in period. Scale it with everything else, and toast the seeds briefly if you want the flavour rounder.
- Rising by the fire"Before the fire" means a warm draught-free spot, not hot. Heavily sugared and buttered dough rises slowly; allow an hour or more in the tin, until visibly puffed, before it goes in the oven.
- The six eggs in No. 3Added singly into an already-risen dough, these slacken it considerably. Work each one in fully before the next or the dough will separate into a sticky mess, and expect a softer, more brioche-like crumb than the other three versions.
Seed cake belongs to the long English tradition of caraway in sweet baking, which runs from Tudor comfits through to the plain tea cakes of the nineteenth century, and was often associated with the end of the wheat sowing. What makes these four versions worth reading is that they are baking-day economy rather than confectionery: the cook takes a piece of the same dough already set for the household bread and turns it into cake with fat, sugar and seeds, the same manoeuvre that produces lardy cake, dough cake and Cornish heavy cake in various regions. Cassell's habit of printing several numbered variants of one dish, with a costing attached (fourpence a pound if you used dripping), was aimed squarely at the mistress of a modest household choosing between what she could afford and what she had in the larder. The fourth recipe abandons the bread dough and starts from flour and barm, showing the same cake made deliberately rather than opportunistically.