It’s that time of year again as Autumn draws upon us that I begin to think about recipes I love baking when it gets colder. One recipe I love making at this time of year is Parkin.

If you don’t know what Parkin is or you have never tasted it, then you are missing out! Parkin is a gingerbread and oaty cake very popular in the north of England. It’s one of those traditional Yorkshire baking recipes your granny or mum may have grown up on and families will have their own special recipe. My own grandma, my Nana Margaret who was from West Yorkshire was not a good cook and definitely not a baker! Any cake or sweet treat she had would be bought from a local bakery or M&S and she would try to pass it off as her own! So, I never had a grandma favourite recipe for Parkin. My other grandma on the other hand, Nana Mary was a fantastic cook and baker although she did not come from Yorkshire. She made gorgeous lemon drizzle cakes.

I first tasted Parkin when I moved to Yorkshire myself as a recently qualified teacher in the 1990s and I taught a Reception class. On a Friday afternoon all the classes in Key Stage One used to have an Activity Afternoon and I chose to do baking as my activity. In groups of 6 we would bake or make different things and I would try and link our recipe to that time of the year or a particular festival being celebrated at that time. For one week we made Parkin. At the time I had never attempted to make it myself before and as I was single at the time, I didn’t even have baking ingredients in my house! How things change! I now get all panicky when I run out of eggs! I even had to ask the other teachers if they had a Parkin recipe as this was in the days before good old Google!

Despite having never made Parkin before and neither had any of the children I taught, we had a fantastic baking session and we had some gorgeous Parkin to take home. How I wish I could bake with children like that again, now there’s no time at all on the curriculum and that was even before the Covid pandemic started.

As I type it is my last full day of self isolation myself and over the past week or so I have been baking more than I should. Usually anything I bake goes to work to share out but this last week I have had to hide everything or keep myself out of the kitchen! I couldn’t resist baking some Parkin though.

The Parkin recipe I use is from the very first Great British Bake Off Book “The Great British Book Of Baking” which accompanied the very first series way back in 2010! Parkin is meant to be kept for a week wrapped up in foil for a week to improve the flavours but I never can wait that long! There is something about the aroma of gingerbread baking that sends your senses going. I chose this time to follow the recipe in the 2019 Bake Off book “Amazing Cakes” which was really great to follow.

First, I greased and lined my square baking tin and put the oven on to heat up. While it was heating up I beat one egg with some milk in a jug.

In a saucepan I put butter, treacle, golden syrup and sugar and melted it altogether over a very low heat.

Once the butter mixture was removed from the heat, the mixture was poured into a large mixing bowl. To this I weighed out rolled oats, self raising flour, ground ginger and some mixed spice. This was then folded into the melted butter mixture with a large metal spoon until well combined.

The mixture was then put into the tin and baked for about 55 minutes in my fan oven at 140oC.

When it was finished, I left the Parkin in the tin until it was completely cold and then cut it into squares. I then wrapped them in foil and put in a tin planning to keep it there for a week. I didn’t! The following day I felt I needed something to eat and grabbed myself a piece. Oh my it was like heaven!

Happy Baking!

Love Sam xx