SEED CAKE
Mix a quarter of a peck of flour with half a pound of sugar, a quarter of an ounce of allspice, and a little ginger. Melt three quarters of a pound of butter, with half a pint of milk; when just warm, put to it a quarter of a pint of yeast, and work it up to a good dough. Add seeds or currants, let it stand before the fire a few minutes before it goes to the oven, and bake it an hour and a half.
Another way is to mix a pound and a half of flour, a pound of lump sugar, eight eggs beaten separately, an ounce of seeds, two spoonfuls of yeast, and the same of milk and water. Milk alone soon causes cake and bread to get dry.--Another. Break eighteen eggs into a large pan, and leave out eight of the whites; add to them two pounds of fresh butter, and with your hand work the butter and eggs till they are well mixed, and like thick barme; put in two or three spoonfuls of sack, two pounds of lump sugar sifted, two pounds of fine flour, and two ounces of carraway seeds, mix the sugar, flour, and seeds, well together, and set it before the fire for half an hour, covering it with a cloth, and remember to put the flour, &c. in by degrees. Tin pudding pans are the best things to bake it in, and take care it be not over-done; they will rise very high in the oven, and when they begin to sink again, they are baked enough.
A cheap seed cake. Take half a peck of flour, set a pint of milk on the fire, and break in a pound and a half of butter; when all the butter is melted, stir in half a pint of ale yeast that is not bitter. Take half an ounce of allspice beat fine, and a pound of sugar sifted; mix these with the flour first, then make a hole in the middle of the flour, and pour in the butter, milk, and yeast. While you are working it, strew in some carraway seeds, and set it before the fire to rise; bake it an hour and a half in a quick oven. It is best baked in two cakes; if you make it in two, put currants in one, and carraway seeds in the other.
Seed cake the nun's way. To four pounds of the finest flour, add three pounds of double-refined sugar beat and sifted; mix this with the flour, and set it before the fire to dry; beat up four pounds of nice fresh butter to a cream, break three dozen of eggs (leaving out sixteen whites) and beat them up very well, with a tea-cupful of orange-flower water, strain them into the butter, and beat them well therewith; take the flour and sugar, and mix in six ounces of carraway seeds; put these ingredients to the butter and eggs by degrees, and beating all continually for two hours: butter a hoop, and bake it three hours in a moderate oven. If you please, you may add two or three grains of ambergris.
SEED WATER
Bruise a spoonful of coriander seeds, and half a spoonful of carraway. Boil them in a pint of water, strain them, beat up the yolk of an egg and mix with the water, add a little sweet wine and lump sugar.
SEEDS
To discover when seeds of any kind are fully ripe and good, throw them into a basin of water. If not sufficiently ripe, they will swim on the surface; but when arrived at full maturity, they will be found uniformly to sink to the bottom; a fact that is said to hold equally true of all seeds, from the cocoa nut to the orchis.
--Seeds of plants may be preserved, for many months at least, by causing them to be packed, either in husks, pods, &c. in absorbent paper, with raisins or brown moist sugar; or a good way, practiced by gardeners, is to wrap the seed in brown paper or cartridge paper, pasted down, and then varnished over.
To preserve seeds, when sown, from vermin. Steep the grain or seed three or four hours, or a sufficient time for it to penetrate the skin, or husk, in a strong solution of liver of sulfur.