Into a bowl sift 2 cups plus 2 tablespoons flour, 1/2 teaspoon salt, 1-3/4 teaspoons baking soda, 1 tablespoon ground ginger, 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves, and 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon. Pour the syrup and butter onto the dry ingredients and mix well. Add 1 beaten egg and 1 cup milk. Beat well. The batter, Ms. Smith tells us, will be very liquid, and it is. Pour it into the tin and bake at 350° F. for about 50 to 55 minutes. (The middle should be just set, with the edge pulling away from the pan, and a tester will bring out a few crumbs.) Cool the cake in the tin for 10 minutes before turning out. This gingerbread went over well with the brain surgeon from Hoboken, who pointed out that in order to do a thorough scientific test he would need to have samples from a great many gingerbreads put before him so that he could, as they say in academic circles, compare and contrast. However, when threatened with being replaced as my tester, he broke down and admitted that it was very, very good. After years of hands-on experience, I have come to three conclusions about gingerbread. First, the ground ginger must be fresh. If your half-consumed jar of ginger has dust all over it, throw it out and buy a new one-ginger loses its power after it has been sitting around for nine months or so. If you live near an ethnic market that sells spices in bulk, buy your ground ginger there. Otherwise, a fresh jar from the supermarket will do fine. Second, most recipes are very timid about the quantity of ginger. You may start out mild and end up doubling or tripling the amount. I like a heaping tablespoon, which may be much too much for some people but not enough for others. This is a matter of taste. Third, never use ordinary molasses. It is simply too bitter-not what you want. Pure cane syrup is the name of the game, and I wholeheartedly endorse that made by the C. S. Steen Syrup Mill of Abbeville, Louisiana, a company that will take mail orders (write to the C. S. Steen Syrup Mill, Inc., P. 0. Box 339, Abbeville, LA 70510 or telephone 318- 893-1654). British recipes often call for black treacle, for which Steens cane syrup is a good substitute, or light treacle, for which I use Lyles Golden Syrup, an English standby that can now be found in many supermarkets and fancy foods shops. If you happen to be a fan of English cookbooks (1 seem to be addicted to them), you will be amazed at the array of gingerbreads, from those dry, bread-like ones called parkin to the dark, sticky ones that are more like what we Americans know as pudding. After much trial and error, I have come across two recipes that are sublime. Nevertheless, I realize hundreds more are out there, yet untried. The first comes from a British Penguin book, The Farmhouse Kitchen by Mary Norwak, which I purchased in a secondhand book shop in Litchfield, Connecticut. It is easy and sensational. dess104