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Dessert

Hovis Cream Cakes

A baked cake made with Hovis flour, lard, milk, baking soda, and cream of tartar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Hovis Cream Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat your oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. In a large bowl, mix the Hovis flour, baking soda, lard, milk, and cream of tartar until a dough forms.

  3. Shape the dough into cakes and place them on an iron plate.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake until half cooked, then turn the cakes over to cook the other side.

  2. Serve as a tea cake, especially good for toasting.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Flour + creamtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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 dough together and sets as the cakes bake.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the cream of tartar to release gas that lifts the cakes.
Lard
Adds fat that keeps the crumb tender and adds richness.
Milk
Provides moisture that hydrates the flour and forms a workable dough.
Cream of tartar
Adds acidity that activates the baking soda and helps the cakes rise.

The step that matters

Turning the cakes halfway through baking. The side touching the hot iron plate cooks faster. Turning the cakes only once the first side has set keeps them from tearing or sinking, and the second side then cooks evenly.

“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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