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Dessert

Hovis Parkin

A ginger cake made with Hovis flour, butter, brown sugar, golden syrup, candied peel, ginger, baking powder, eggs, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and syrup match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,842 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Hovis Parkin

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

  1. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).

  2. Mix all the ingredients together until well combined.

  3. Pour the mixture into a greased baking tin.

  4. Bake for one hour.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Sugar + syruptop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Hovis flour
Provides the structure that holds the dense, cake-like crumb together.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender texture and rich flavour.
Eggs
Bind the batter and help set the structure as it bakes.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps with browning.
Golden syrup
Adds sweetness and moisture that keeps the cake soft and sticky.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the cake rises and lightens.

The step that matters

Bake low and slow for the full hour. A low oven heats the centre gently so the cake sets without the outside burning. Baking too hot or too short can leave the middle sunken or underdone, while too long dries the crumb.

Swap the ginger

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, butter, sugar, egg, milk, syrup):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Jalapenofits about as well
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, sugar, egg, milk, syrup. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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