(Nigella) Seed Cake
And niche ingredient loves ...
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One too many nursery bugs in the last month means I am a little bit behind in my recipe-testing schedule (but way ahead on my tissue and cold meds consumption for 2024, so there is that!). So while I play catch-up I thought I would leave you with this recipe for (Nigella) Seed Cake I adore and which I developed a few years ago.
Nigella seeds (Nigella sativa) are one of my more niche ingredient loves. They are one of the primary reasons I adore fluffy Turkish Pide and the reason I fell head over heels for Naan when I moved to the UK aged 16. In fact, I have yet to come across a flatbread that isn’t infinitely improved by a sprinkling of nigella seeds right before baking. And reading John O’Connell’s ‘The Book of Spice – From Anise to Zedoary‘ I also discovered why - apparently writes nigella seeds (like caraway or poppy) coax out the flavour of wheats and cereals. Which probably explains why you can find nigella seeds in Jewish Challa, Iranian Barbari bread, Greek Daktyla bread, Turkish Pide, Moroccan Khobz and Indian Naan, to name just a few examples.
The flavour of these tiny black seeds is hard to describe – even the Oxford Companion to Food, other than describing them as ‘pungent’, simply focuses more on what they don’t taste like (despite sometimes being called black cumin they taste nothing like cumin) and what they are used for (sprinkling on bread, added to cheese and pickles). I find their flavour too subtle to warrant the word ‘pungent’ but it is certainly unique – sweet and smokey and maybe even a bit musky. Either way, I love them. And while I do bake savoury things from time to time, sweet baked goods still have the number one spot in my heart. And so coming across this mouth-watering shot by Ixta Belfrage of a plate full of saffron and cardamom buns topped with Nigella seeds a while back was all the incentive I needed to turn my niche ingredient love for Nigella seeds into these (Nigella) Seed Cakes, however unusual they may sound.
These days Seed Cake is of course commonly made with caraway seeds. But despite my mum’s Bavarian upbringing and deep-rooted love of all things caraway (I still remember the horror of discovering my mum had, yet again, made our school sandwiches using caraway bread), it is one spice I could easily live without. Historically though, Seed Cake was not always made with caraway. There are recipes using other fragrant seeds, for example coriander, as well as recipes calling for a mixture of different seeds. And so Seed Cake seemed like the obvious choice for baking something sweet using Nigella Seeds. And because I love the combination of a nigella seed studded Naan brushed with melted ghee I swapped in ghee for butter. A trick I will remember for other recipes – ghee somehow manages to taste more buttery than butter itself.
Do you have any niche ingredient loves? Let me know in the comments!
(Nigella) Seed Cake
Notes: I understand that not everyone feels as strongly about nigella seeds as I do, so feel free to experiment using your favourite seeds. As an anise-flavoured anything lover, I think a pinch or two of anise seeds would be lovely. Same goes for fennel. Cardamom is another likely winner. And maybe even coriander with its earthy yet citrussy flavour.
Makes 6 individual seed cakes. For a larger loaf cake, double the ingredients and increase the baking time to 45-60 minutes.
Ingredients
60g ghee (alternatively use 75g butter and reduce the milk to 35ml or about 2 tbsp)
80g sugar
50ml milk
2 eggs
130g all purpose flour
30g ground almonds
1 tsp baking powder
Pinch of salt
2 tsp nigella seeds
Demerara sugar, nigella seeds – for sprinkling on the cakes before baking
Directions
Pre-heat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius. Grease six individual muffin or dariole molds with ghee or butter.
In a bowl, beat the ghee and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs and milk and beat to combine. Fold in the all purpose flour, ground almonds, baking powder, salt and nigella seeds.
Distribute the batter between the six tins. Sprinkle each cake with a pinch of Demerara sugar and a pinch of nigella seeds. Bake for 20-25 minutes until well risen, springy to the touch and a wooden skewer inserted into the centre of each cake comes out clean. Leave to cool in the tins for 5 minutes before carefully inverting the cakes onto a cooling rack.
