Sticky, moist, and ever so comforting, this Yorkshire parkin recipe is the stuff of winter nights and for me has special memories of eating it on Bonfire Night. Parkin truly is one of the best cakes for enjoying a taste of Yorkshire.
The cake is straightforward to make but needs a little planning ahead as it is best kept before eating to allow the flavours to develop and for the cake to become sticky and moist.
Though this Yorkshire Parkin recipe is also a very versatile cake and it can be a pudding and even a topping for other dishes. My favourite always will be with a cup of tea but look at the other suggestions below for inspiration.
serves 6 – 8
Ingredients:
170 g soft butter, plus a little extra for greasing
110 g soft, dark brown sugar
120 g black treacle
80 g golden syrup
125 g medium oatmeal
200 g self-raising flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
3 teaspoons ground ginger
2 teaspoons mace (or nutmeg if you don’t have any)
1 teaspoon mixed spice
1 egg
2 tablespoons milk
Method:
- Heat the oven to 140°C, and grease a 20 cm x 20 cm square cake tin with butter.
- Melt the butter, sugar, treacle, and golden syrup in a large saucepan over gentle heat. Avoid boiling the mixture; it simply needs to melt together.
- Place all the dry ingredients and spices into a roomy baking bowl and stir. Gradually add the melted butter/treacle mixture and stir well, coating all the dry ingredients.
- Beat the eggs with the milk and stir into the cake batter. Pour the mixture into the prepared tin, and cook for 1½ hours until set and a dark, golden brown.
- Remove the parkin from the oven, place the tin on a cooling rack and leave it to cool in the tin. Once cooled, remove from the tin and store in an airtight container for a minimum of 3 – 5 days – if you can resist eating the cake – to allow the flavours to develop and the cake to become sticky and moist.
Five uses for Yorkshire parkin recipe
- Replace the cake in a traditional trifle with slices of parkin for a lovely ginger flavour. Sprinkle the cake with a bit of syrup from stem ginger and use fine slivers of ginger as decoration.
- Move over sticky toffee pudding, and serve warm parkin drenched with hot toffee sauce, custard or vanilla ice cream.
- Serve warm Yorkshire parkin with stewed or roasted Yorkshire rhubarb and a little thick cream.
- Should you ever have any leftover parkin then leave the cake to dry a little. Then break it into crumbs to use as a topping for ice cream, or if you are making ice cream, add the crumbs before churning.
- Stir the crumbs into a cheesecake mixture.
If you enjoyed this Parkin recipe, find more recipes from Elaine, here on the website or follow her on Instagram.
