Parkin

Sticky ginger cake with warm spices and black treacle

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City/Region: Yorkshire, England

Time Period: 1915

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There are many different stories of how parkin got its name. My favorite, as usually happens, involves a dragon. A woman named Mary Parkin bakes some to feed to a dragon that’s been terrorizing her village so that its jaws will get stuck together, and after eating some I can verify the plausibility of such a tale.

Parkin is very, very sticky and really delicious. There is a lot of ginger, accompanied by all the spices in the mixed spice, and the black treacle adds a kind of dark warmth that’s similar to molasses. If you like gingerbread, but want to try something different, give this a shot. There are also a lot of varieties of parkin, so you could make a new one each year for Guy Fawkes Day and see which one is your favorite.

“Yorkshire Parkin
Half a pound of flour, half a pound of fine oatmeal, two ounces of lard, two ounces of butter, half a pound of treacle, two ounces of sugar, one teaspoonful of ground ginger, one teaspoonful mixed spice, one teaspoonful baking powder, pinch of salt, a little milk.
Rub the lard and butter into the flour, add all dry ingredients, warm the treacle, and add with a little milk, mix well, pour into a flat tin, well greased. Bake in a very moderate oven about forty minutes. ”

— Pot-Luck or The British Home Cookery Book by May Byron, 1915

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Ingredients:

• 3/4 cup (225 g) treacle*, I used half golden syrup, half black treacle
• 1 3/4 cup (225 g) cake flour or all purpose flour
• 1 1/2 cups (225 g) fine oatmeal*
• 4 tablespoons (55 g) lard
• 4 tablespoons (55 g) butter
• 1/3 cup (60 g) brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon ginger
• 1 teaspoon mixed spice*
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• A pinch of salt
• 1/4 cup (60 ml) milk

*See notes below.

Instructions:

1. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).
2. Heat the treacle in a saucepan over low heat. You don’t want it to boil, just get warm enough to be more liquidy and easy to use.
3. Mix the flour and oatmeal. Rub in the lard and butter. As you do this, lift the mixture out of the bowl and let it flutter down. This will add air and help give the cake a bit more lift.
4. Stir in the sugar, ginger, mixed spice, baking powder, and salt. Mix thoroughly.
5. Mix in the warmed treacle and the milk. The batter should be thick but pourable, so add a little more milk if it’s too stiff.
6. Pour the batter into a lined 8 inch cake pan and smooth the top. Bake for 45 minutes.
7. Let it cool in the pan for 10 minutes, then turn it out onto a wire rack to cool completely. Slice into squares. Parkin is kind of dry when it first comes out of the oven, but if it ages for a few days, or better yet a week, it becomes soft and sticky, and that’s how you’re supposed to eat it. So, wait for at least a few days, then serve it forth.

Notes

• Golden syrup doesn't have a good equivalent in the US and can be a little hard to find depending where you live.
• Black treacle is a dark and sweet syrup with a mild bitterness, similar to molasses.
• You can blitz some rolled oats to make a coarse meal, or get some medium or Scottish oatmeal.
• Mixed spice is a blend that has varied throughout history and is typically used for Christmas cakes in the UK, kind of like pumpkin pie spice in the US. You likely won’t find mixed spice in the US, so you can make your own by combining 1 teaspoon allspice, 1 teaspoon cinnamon, 1 teaspoon nutmeg, 1/2 teaspoon mace, 1/4 teaspoon ginger, 1/4 teaspoon cloves, and 1/4 teaspoon coriander. You can also alter the mixture how you want, there’s no real standard recipe.
• Link to Lyle's Golden Syrup: https://amzn.to/47k7ILN
• Link to black treacle: https://amzn.to/2XZdW5x
• Link to Scottish oatmeal: https://amzn.to/2ZAcpTE

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