Seed Cake
Two cups of flour, one-half cup of sugar, one-half cup of butter or clarified drippings, one teaspoonful baking powder, one egg, about two-thirds of a cupful of milk, one teaspoonful of caraway seeds and a pinch of salt. Stir together the flour, salt and baking powder, rub in the butter lightly, then add the sugar and seeds. Beat the egg light and add it with the milk. Bake one hour in a steady oven.
A plain rubbed-in seed cake, closer to a rich soda bread than to a creamed butter cake. It is quick to assemble, and the main risks are an overwet batter and an oven guessed too hot.
- "A steady oven"Steady means an even, unwavering heat rather than a stated degree; the book gives no figure, but a moderate oven, around 350F, is the usual modern reading. At an hour's bake in a loaf or 7-inch round tin that is about right; test with a skewer at 45 minutes, since modern ovens hold heat far more evenly than the range this was written for.
- Clarified drippingsBeef or pork fat rendered and strained. It gives a savoury, faintly meaty note that suits caraway. Butter is the straightforward substitution; lard or shortening also works, though the flavour is flatter.
- Rub, do not creamThe fat is worked into the flour with the fingertips until it looks like coarse meal, as for pastry. This is what gives the cake its short, crumbly texture. Creaming the butter and sugar instead produces a different, lighter cake.
- The milk is a guide, not a rule"about two-thirds of a cupful" leaves room for variation in flour absorbency. Add it gradually until the batter is thick and dropping, not pourable; a slack batter here bakes heavy and sinks.
- Baking powderOne teaspoon to two cups of flour is modest by current practice, and period baking powders were weaker and less reliable than today's double-acting sort. The cake is meant to be close-grained rather than airy; resist adding more.
- Caraway seedsA teaspoon is assertive. Warming them briefly in a dry pan before adding sharpens the flavour. If caraway is not to your taste, this is the whole point of the cake, and you would be better off with a plain pound cake.
- Pan and yieldThe quantities suit a 1-lb loaf tin or a 7-inch round, greased and lined. It gives roughly eight to ten slices, and is good toasted and buttered the day after.
Seed cake is a long-established English cake, its name referring simply to caraway seed, which was baked into breads, cakes and comfits by the sixteenth century. It was associated with the end of the sowing season, when farm workers were given a seed cake, and by the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries it had settled into the role it holds here: a plain, keeping cake to have with tea or a glass of wine when someone called. That the recipe uses clarified drippings and a single egg suggests a reader expected to bake regularly and economically rather than occasionally and lavishly. Caraway fell out of English favour over the twentieth century, which is why a cake once considered thoroughly ordinary now reads as old-fashioned.