The Teaspoon: Caraway Seed 'Half-Pound' Cake

by Diana

When I am not cooking, thinking about recipes or addictively buying ingredients to cook new dishes, and most importantly, to photograph them, I work in museums. Yes, disappointingly as it might sound for some of you, starting with my own brother, art is my real and true passion. The thing is that it can be really difficult to combine museum practice with the love of cooking, unless a weird contemporary hybrid is discovered, something absurd and ridiculous like museum-cooking-therapy, which I am sure already exists somewhere.

However, by pure and wonderful coincidence, about two weeks ago I was trying to explain to some children who William Kent was, so they could get going and design their own garden and I surprised myself reading the briefing and affirming with loud conviction that he was a 'famous 18th century designer of houses and gardens and a lover of good food'. I stopped all of a sudden and rewinded fearfully, wondering if that last phrase was about William Kent or just about me. So I double checked that my unconscious didn't betrayed me, secretly using visitors to promote my blog again and so I discovered that this 18th century fellow was in deed a promoter of good eating in Georgian times. What I heard from kind volunteers is that William Kent was the first one to incorporate the dining room to interior design and that's when a dedicated space to eat in the house was firstly created in England about 300 years ago, impacting the traditions of the time and refining food taste forever.

So after this pleasant discovery I thought that the best way to celebrate was by posting a genuine recipe from the Regency period: Caraway Seed Pound Cake. So here it is for you all, simple, tasty and full of history. Please notice that a pound cake was going to be too much, even for my husband, so I took the liberty to reduce it by half and to make just half a pound.

Finally, if you want to get all your senses involved, not only try out the recipe but save a piece of cake to enjoy it after visiting the William Kent exhibition at the V&A.

I hope you like it!

Ingredients

(serves 8)

225 g unsalted butter

3 egg yolks

3 whole eggs

225 g muscovado sugar

225 g all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking powder (which I read didn't exist in the 18th century but take advantage of the present).

2 tablespoons caraway seeds

If you need a closer look at caraway seeds here they are:

Preparation method

Preheat the oven to 180 C/ 350 F.

Butter a baking tin of about 30 centimeters diameter and line with non-stick baking paper. Set aside.

In a bowl beat the butter for about 3 minutes until pale and creamy. Add the sugar and beat for another 2-3 minutes.

In a separate bowl mix the eggs, both the whole eggs and the three additional yolks. Mix for about 1-2 minutes.

Now incorporate slowly the beaten eggs to the creamed butter and sugar until thoroughly combined. Now add the flour mixed with the baking powder and beat for about 5-10 minutes.