I don't remember when I learned about seed cake, but I do know that it was years before I actually tasted it. It sounded so interesting, but no one in my circle had ever heard of it. I've been making it for years now, and I've never tired of its simple but intriguing taste. It's basically just a very rich biscuit dough flavored with caraway seed. I generally add orange or lemon zest to the dough. A newly made one has a half life of about a day here.
2 comments:
I've always been fond of poppy seed cake but never would have considered caraway! Is this a sweet cake, or savory?
It’slightly sweet, but not up to modern dessert expectations. For instance, it makes great sandwich bread for cold meat, somewhat in the way rye bread with caraway seed does. Seed cake with caraway has a long tradition in the Anglo-Irish tradition, and I’m pretty sure “seed cake” in that tradition always means caraway seed. I associate poppy seed cake with the eastern European tradition.
There is a droll scene in the Agatha Christie story At Bertram’s Hotel in the version with Joan Hickson as Miss Marple where Miss Marple is at the hotel for tea with one of her friends, another crone of great quality, and the waiter suggests the seed cake. “Is it real seed cake?” Miss Marple inquires. And the waiter assures her that it is.
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