Baking a Traditional Parkin for Bonfire Night

Why Parkin Belongs to Bonfire Night

There is a good reason parkin appears on moorland and Pennine tables every fifth of November, and it has as much to do with the weather as with tradition. This is a heavy, dark, oat-thickened ginger cake sweetened with treacle and golden syrup, and it is at its best not on the day it is baked but four or five days later, once the crumb has drawn in the syrup and turned properly sticky. Bake it on a wet Sunday, forget about it, and carry it to the bonfire on Thursday in a tin.

It also keeps. Wrapped well, parkin will sit contentedly for a fortnight and only improve, which makes it the sort of cake worth having in the house through the darker weeks. It is robust enough to travel in a saddlebag or a rucksack pocket, dense enough to stand up to a flask of tea, and forgiving enough that a slightly dry bake is rescued by a day or two in an airtight tin. If you have ever come home from a long walk over the tops with cold hands and a hollow feeling, you will understand the appeal immediately.

The Ingredients That Matter

This makes a 20cm square tin, or two 1lb loaf tins. Use a square tin if you can — it gives a better ratio of chewy edge to soft middle, and it cuts into neat slabs for a crowd.

• 200g plain flour
• 200g medium oatmeal — not porridge oats, which are too soft and flaky. If you only have coarse oatmeal, blitz it briefly, but leave some texture.
• 200g soft dark brown sugar
• 100g butter and 100g lard, or 200g butter if you prefer. The lard gives the traditional slightly crisp base and a longer keeping time.
• 200g golden syrup and 50g black treacle. The treacle is what makes it dark and faintly bitter; skip it and you have a pleasant ginger cake, not parkin.
• 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 2 tsp ground ginger and 1 tsp mixed spice
• 1 large egg and 2 tbsp milk

Weigh the syrup and treacle by standing the tin on the scales and spooning it out. Warm the tin first if it is a cold kitchen — a spoonful of hot water in the tin helps loosen the last of it.

Mixing and Baking

Heat the oven to 160°C conventional, 140°C fan, gas mark 3. Line your tin with baking parchment and let the paper stand a couple of centimetres proud of the rim; parkin climbs a little and you want to lift the whole slab out cleanly.

Put the butter, lard, syrup, treacle and sugar into a large saucepan and warm gently, stirring, until everything has melted together. Do not let it boil. Take it off the heat and leave it to cool for ten minutes while you weigh the dry ingredients into a big bowl and beat the egg with the milk.

Pour the warm syrup mixture into the dry ingredients, add the egg and milk, and beat with a wooden spoon until you have a loose, glossy batter. It will look thinner than a normal cake mixture, and that is exactly right. Pour it into the tin and bake for 1 hour to 1 hour 15 minutes, until a skewer pushed into the centre comes out with a few moist crumbs rather than wet batter. If the top starts to catch, lay a sheet of parchment over it.

Leave it to cool completely in the tin. It will still feel soft and slightly underdone in the middle — resist the urge to put it back in.

The Waiting Is the Recipe

This is the part most people get wrong. Parkin straight from the oven is crumbly and a little dry. Wrapped and left alone, it transforms.

• Cool completely, then wrap the slab, still in its paper, in foil or place it in an airtight tin.
• Keep it somewhere cool for at least three days, ideally five. A cold larder or unheated porch is ideal; a warm kitchen will make it sweat.
• Cut it into squares only when you are ready to serve, and keep the remainder tightly wrapped.
• It will keep for two weeks and freezes well for three months, sliced, with parchment between the layers.

If damp moorland air is a problem in your kitchen, add a second layer of foil around the tin. Parkin absorbs moisture from the atmosphere and can turn claggy.

Baking on a Range or Woodburner

Plenty of country kitchens run on something other than a standard oven, and parkin is forgiving enough to manage. On an oil-fired or solid-fuel range, use the cooler side of the main oven and check after 50 minutes — these ovens run hot at the top and the treacle will catch quickly. Bake in a loaf tin rather than a square one if space is tight.

If you are cooking on a woodburner with a top oven, get the fire established and settled before you put the cake in, so the heat is steady rather than roaring. A baking stone or a thick metal tray on the shelf below helps even things out. Cool the cake on the hearth if that is the warmest spot, then move it somewhere cold to mature.

Taking It Out to the Bonfire

Wrap individual squares in greaseproof paper and pack them in a tin with a lid, alongside a flask. Parkin travels better than almost any other cake: it does not crumble, it does not need icing, and cold fingers do not mind its density. A slab with a mug of strong tea after a walk back across the fields is one of the better rewards of a November evening.

Bake a double batch while you have the treacle tin open. One to eat now, one to hide at the back of the larder for the week you will most need it.