I’m not sure if this cake ever truly featured in my childhood, or if I’ve only imagined it there, so largely did it feature in the books that I spent countless hours in the company of back in those days: all those Blyton picnics and adventures of plucky kids in a boat. It is now indelibly linked with my memories of impossibly long, hot summer holidays on Dartmoor spent trying to catch minnows in the river and the moment our mum took our winter dungarees, that our sprouting limbs had outgrown, and cut them into dungaree shorts that we wore until the weather turned cool again (well it was the 70s).
This seed cake is a cake built for adventuring. The sort you wrap in wax paper and tuck into a backpack. It’s robust, tightly crumbed, not too sweet and not too soft. It’s the kind of cake that tastes better eaten outside. Use caraway seeds for a proper seed cake, but if they are not to your taste, just substitute them with poppy seeds.
If you are taking this cake to eat on the go, keep it plain, or if you are eating at home, make it fancy with an orange icing.
Summer seed cake
Zest of 1 unwaxed orange
3 tbsp freshly squeezed orange juice
185g butter
185g caster sugar
3 large eggs
275g plain flour
11/2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp caraway or poppy seeds
Orange Icing
Juice of half an orange
Around 100g icing sugar (or until you get that pourable but thick consistency)
Preheat the oven to 160°C and grease and line a 20cm round cake tin.
Cream the butter and sugar until pale and fluffy. Add the orange zest, then beat in the eggs one at a time. Sift the flour and baking powder together and fold through your buttery mix, followed by the caraway or poppy seeds. Bake in the prepared tin for 45–50 minutes, or until golden, risen and a skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean. Leave to cool in the tin for 10 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack and let it cool completely.
Mix the orange juice and icing sugar until you have a thick icing that just runs from a spoon. Drizzle it slowly over the cooled cake.
