Caraway seed cake Caraway seed cake Seed cake is a traditional British cake flavoured with caraway or other flavourful 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 tea cake. 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). The cake was popular in the 1700s, and through the Victorian era. Recipes for it are included in many early
Depression cake the recipe. However, some bakers do include butter. Boiled raisin-type cakes date back at least to the American Civil War. Depression cake has been referred to as “War Cake” by texts dating back to World War I. In a pamphlet distributed by the United States Food Administration in 1918 entitled “War Economy in Food,” War Cake is listed under “Recipes for Conservation Sweets.” The United States Food Administration stressed the importance of reducing sugar consumption during the war and offered molasses, corn syrup, and raisins in its place. When the Great Depression hit America following the Stock Market Crash of