THE GOOD SEEDS

A WESTERN AUSTRALIAN READER SHARES THE SECRET OF HER GRANDMOTHER’S TRADITIONAL SEED CAKE.

A grandmother’s caraway seed cake brings back fond memories of enjoying a slice with coffee.

CAROLINE CREEK LIVES on a 1600-hectare mixed farming property at Boyup Brook, 269 kilometres south-east of Perth, but a slice of her grandmother’s caraway seed cake can instantly transport her back to the UK university city of Cambridge where she grew up. “Granny would arrive every Saturday afternoon with her caraway seed cake and a plate of fishpaste sandwiches, or sometimes cucumber, that always had the crusts cut off,” she recalls. While the fishpaste is something Caroline, 69, is happy to leave in the past, the cake is a cherished reminder of her childhood. “I grew up in the 1950s and I can still remember that gorgeous aroma in her kitchen, where there was also a wooden clothes-drying rack hanging from the ceiling. I loved watching her pull the rack up and down and playing with the treasures in her button box.” Caraway seed cake is a traditional British recipe that was popular in the Victorian era and is believed to date back to medieval times when seed cakes were baked as a reward for agricultural workers when they’d finished sowing seeds in the fields. The long crescent-shaped spice adds a warm, aniseed flavour that pairs particularly well with tea, but this is where Caroline’s grandmother, Alice Aston (pictured above), broke with tradition. “At the door she would always say: ‘Hello darlings, come on in. I’ve got the coffee on.’ Most people would make a pot of tea but she would always make coffee with a pan full of milk.” Alice was born in London in 1896 and trained as a milliner, later creating hand-stitched hats for private clients. In the 1920s she married Charles Aston, a former World War I stretcher bearer, and moved to Bristol where Charles worked with the civil service. After Charles died in 1954, Alice moved to Cambridge to live a few streets away from their only child, Patricia, who was now married and raising her own young family. “Granny used to make all my clothes, often by cutting down her own dresses,” Caroline explains. “She was a very upright lady… she had lots of beads and always wore a hat; however, she had a very loud stage whisper, which was a bit embarrassing when we took her to the theatre or ballet!” Fortunately, Alice didn’t keep quiet about her baking secrets either, so Caroline was able to bring the caraway seed cake recipe with her when she emigrated to Australia in 1979 with her husband and two young children (a third child was later born in Australia). The trick is in the topping. “When you sprinkle the sugar on top before baking it, it makes a lovely crust as the cake rises. Put some nice china alongside it and it will be just as Granny would have done it.”