Caraway seed cake
{{Short description|Traditional British cake}}
{{Infobox prepared food
| name = Caraway seed cake
| image = Caraway seed cake.jpg
| image_size = 300px
| caption =
| alternate_name =
| country = United Kingdom
| region =
| creator =
| type = Cake
| served =
| main_ingredient = Flour, eggs, caraway seeds
| variations =
| calories =
| other =
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Seed cake is a traditional British cake flavoured with caraway or other flavoursome seeds. Caraway seeds have been long used in British cookery, and at one time caraway-seed biscuits were prepared to mark the end of the sowing of the spring wheat. These particular biscuits later evolved into this distinctively flavoured teacake.
History
James Matterer reports that recipes for seed cake are found in A.W.'s Book of Cookrye (1591) and The English Huswife by Gervase Markham (1615).{{cite web
| last = Matterer
| first = James
| title = Seed Cake
| work = A Boke of Gode Cookery
| url = http://www.godecookery.com/goderec/grec29.htm
| access-date = April 4, 2012}} The cake was popular in the 1700s, and through the Victorian era. Recipes for it are included in many early cookbooks, including Hannah Glasse's The Art of Cookery made Plain and Easy (1747){{cite web
| last = Glasse
| first = Hannah
| title = The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy; Which Far Exceeds any Thing of the Kind yet Publiſhed
| date = 1774
| url = https://archive.org/stream/artcookerymadep02glasgoog#page/n314/mode/2up/search/seed+cake
}} (note that there are recipes for "cheap seed-cake" and "a rich seed-cake, called the nun's cake"), Elizabeth Moxon's English Housewifery Exemplified (1764), Amelia Simmons' American Cookery (1796), Mary Eaton's The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary (1822), and Isabella Beeton's Book of Household Management (1861).{{cite book | title=Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management |chapter-url=http://www.mrsbeeton.com/35-chapter35.html |author=Beeton, Isabella Mary |year=1861 |chapter=Chapter 35 - Bread, Biscuits, and Cakes - Recipes}}
"Seed cake" and "caraway cake" often have different recipes (see, e.g., recipes number 231 "carraway cake" and number 235 "seed cake" in Elizabeth Moxon's 1764 cookbook,{{cite web
| last = Moxon
| first = Elizabeth
| title = English Housewifery Exemplified
| url = http://www.free-recipes.co.uk/english-housewifery-exemplified/ebook-page-34.asp
| access-date = April 4, 2012}} and recipes for "carraway cake" and "seed cake" in Mary Eaton's 1822 cookbook). Caraway seeds were so popular a flavouring that they appear in at least 14 cake or biscuit recipes, as well as other items, including soap, a treatment for "hysterics," and as a bait for rat traps in The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary.
Other
The Goosnargh cake is a similar cake or biscuit named after the village in Lancashire.{{cite web
| last = Burnett-Hall
| first = Tamsin
| title = Goosnargh cakes
| url = https://www.sainsburysmagazine.co.uk/recipes/cookies-and-biscuits/goosnargh-cakes
| access-date = 2022-07-29
| archive-date = 2021-04-16
| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20210416133700/https://www.sainsburysmagazine.co.uk/recipes/cookies-and-biscuits/goosnargh-cakes
| url-status = live
}}
References
External links
{{gutenberg | no=10072 | name=English Housewifery Exemplified}}
{{gutenberg | no=12815 | name=American Cookery, or the Art of Dressing Viands, Fish, Poultry and Vegetables, and the Best Modes of Making Pastes, Puffs, Pies, Tarts, Puddings, Custards and Preserves and All Kinds of Cakes, from the Imperial Plumb to Plain Cake. Adapted to this Country, and All Grades of Life.}}
{{gutenberg | no=29084 | name=The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches}}
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