By Osla Jamwal-FraserApril 12th 2022
Osla Jamwal-Fraser

This Easter, why not don your baker's apron and make a nice cake, like this recipe from Taste of Shetland?

If, like me, you're running late in organising something special for Easter, here’s a recipe for an easy cake you can make as a Sunday treat. Once a staple product for all the isles’ bakers and a common feature on tea tables across the isles, Seed Cake is a delicious addition to seasonal celebrations. Although not strictly speaking a Shetland recipe, traditional caraway seed cake was certainly more widely available here, till a much later date, than in many other parts of the country.

Indeed, though we may now think of caraway as an exotic spice it is in fact a plant that can and does grow wild in Shetland. Commonly called caraway seeds, or carvi seeds in dialect, they are actually the dried fruits of the Caraway plant (Carum carvi), a member of the carrot family. There are places where you will still see this plant growing around the entrances of rural Kirks. Notable numbers of churchgoers would chew on them to aid their digestion of the week’s sermon and then empty any loose seeds from their pockets as they left church. Although the modern fervour for strimming and verge clearing has done much to eradicate them.

The seeds have a warm aromatic anise flavour not dissimilar to cumin and are used in sweet and savoury dishes across the world. The humble seed cake is basically a fairly plain sponge, similar to a Madeira cake in texture, with the addition of aromatic caraway seeds. In many parts of the British Isles it was traditional to make caraway seed biscuits to celebrate the sowing of spring wheat at this time of year, and over time this morphed into a tasty tea bread. This type of seed cake was popular throughout the 17th and 18th centuries and featured in many seminal culinary works, such as Isabella Beeton’s original Book of Household Management, in 1861.

Seed Cake is one of those divisive dishes, a bit like marmite, which you either love or hate. With the recent rise in popularity of all things amply iced, this plainer offering has become something of a forgotten treasure. This is the cake for you if you hanker after simpler times, when cake was naked and always in goodly supply ‘in da press’ for unannounced visitors 'drapping alang'. Eat it thinly sliced with a good strong cup of tea, and a veil of Shetland Farm Dairies Butter if you’re feeling decadent.

Don’t get carried away with this cake! Less is more, and a pleasing seed cake is about tasting the flavour of the seeds. Add too many, and your cake will take on a medicinal flavour. The other watchword is quality. As this is a simple cake your ingredients must be excellent quality and as fresh as you can get them - local eggs, butter and milk are a must, as are decent quality flour and ground almonds. If they have been festering at the back of your cupboard for a year or more, your family won’t be best pleased with this treat, no matter how much effort went into it!

Seed Cake

Servings: 8


Ingredients:

  • 120g Shetland Farm Dairies butter, at room temperature
  • 120g caster sugar
  • 3 large eggs, lightly beaten
  • 1 level tsp caraway seeds
  • 170g self raising flour
  • 50g ground almonds
  • 2 tbsp milk

Instructions:

  1. Preheat the oven to 160°C/gas mark 3. Line a small loaf tin (20cm x 9cm) with baking parchment.

  2. Lightly toast the caraway seeds in a small pan over a low heat for a couple of minutes. This helps to release their aroma. Remove from the heat and allow to cool.

  3. Cream the butter and sugar together until pale and creamy. Add the beaten eggs a little at a time, beating well between additions. You can add a spoon or two of the flour with the last of the egg to stop the mixture curdling.

  4. Add the caraway seeds, the rest of the flour and the ground almonds. Mix well to combine, adding the milk to loosen the mixture to a dropping consistency.

  5. Spoon the batter into the prepared tin and bake for an hour. To check if it’s cooked, insert a skewer into the cake. If it is clean when you remove it, the cake is ready.

  6. Let the cake cool completely on a wire rack.

The cake will keep for up to a week in an airtight container.

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