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Dessert

Yorkshire Parkin

A sweet oat cake with butter, sugar, treacle, and ginger baked slowly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and ginger are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,054 recipes. Both carry 1-penten-3-one, which smells fish, pungent. The science ↓

Yorkshire 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.

Prepare the dough

  1. Sift the oatmeal through a coarse sieve.

  2. Rub in the butter until well combined.

  3. Add the sugar, treacle, and ground ginger, and mix into a dough.

  4. Put the dough into a large square tin.

Bake and finish

  1. Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) until nearly done.

  2. Wash the top with brandy before finishing baking.

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 + gingertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together14,054 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  2. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Butter + gingertop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,152 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

Sugar and ginger barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 14,054 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

Oatmeal
Forms the bulk of the dough and gives the cake its hearty, crumbly structure.
Butter
Adds fat that enriches the dough and keeps the cooked parkin tender and moist.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the top brown during baking.
Treacle
Adds dark sweetness, moisture, and a rich flavour that helps the parkin stay soft.
Ground ginger
Provides the warm, spicy aroma that defines the parkin.

The step that matters

Bake in a slow oven until nearly done. A low oven temperature cooks the oatmeal and syrup gently so the centre sets without the sugars scorching on the outside. Baking too hot can burn the treacle and sugar before the parkin is cooked through.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Gingerthe original
  4. Capersfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar. 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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