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Treacle Parkin
Put four ounces of butter with three-quarters of a pound of best treacle into a jar, and place this near the fire until the butter is dissolved, then stir in four ounces of moist sugar. Mix a pound of oatmeal with half a pound of flour, three-quarters of an ounce of powdered ginger, and a quarter of an ounce of caraway-seeds. Stir the treacle, etc., into the oatmeal, and make the mixture into a firm paste with a little flour. Roll it out to the thickness of a quarter of an inch, and bake in buttered tartlet-tins in a moderate oven. If liked, the caraway-seeds may be omitted, and a little sliced candied peel added when the parkin is rolled on the table. Keep the parkin in tins carefully excluded from the air. Or rub one pound of butter into four pounds of oatmeal, add half a pound of sugar, two ounces of ground ginger, and as much warm treacle as will make a tolerably stiff batter. A cupful of milk may be added if liked. Put the batter into buttered baking-tins, or small tartlet-tins, and bake in a moderate oven. In order to ascertain when it is done enough, put a skewer into the centre, and if this comes out dry and clean the parkin is ready. A little sliced candied peel or a few caraway-seeds may be added if approved. Time to bake, according to size: the parkin should be done rather slowly, or the outside will be burnt before the inner part is done enough.
Two versions of the same Yorkshire cake sit side by side here: a stiff rolled paste and a looser batter. Both are forgiving, but the oatmeal and the treacle need attention.
- Oven temperatureA "moderate oven" is usually taken as around 325-350F. The closing note that parkin "should be done rather slowly" is the important part: treacle and sugar scorch readily, so err toward the lower end, and lower still for a thick tin. The recipe gives no times at all -- small tartlet tins will be quick, a deep tin much slower -- so test with a skewer as directed.
- Treacle"Best treacle" here is almost certainly black treacle, not golden syrup and not American molasses, which is thinner and sweeter; blackstrap is too bitter. The recipe warms it only until the butter is dissolved, so take it no further than that.
- Moist sugarSoft light brown sugar. Victorian "moist sugar" was unrefined and slightly damp; brown sugar is the direct equivalent.
- OatmealMedium or pinhead oatmeal, not rolled oats and not oat flour. Rolled oats give a flabby, flat texture. If only rolled oats are available, pulse them briefly so they are broken but still gritty.
- The second version's proportionsFour pounds of oatmeal with only half a pound of sugar and "as much warm treacle as will make a tolerably stiff batter" is a very large, barely sweet batch; the quantity of treacle is not stated and would be substantial. Scale it down if you are trying it, and add the treacle gradually until the batter is, as the recipe says, tolerably stiff.
- GingerThree-quarters of an ounce is roughly 4 tablespoons of ground ginger to a pound and a half of dry ingredients; the second version's two ounces to four pounds of oatmeal works out at the same rate. Either way it is deliberately fierce. Ground ginger loses potency in the jar, so old stock will taste of nothing here.
- Resting and keepingThe instruction to keep it in airtight tins may not be only about staleness. Parkin is traditionally said to improve on keeping, the crumb softening and the flavour deepening over several days, though the recipe itself says nothing about resting.
Parkin belongs to the oat-growing north of England, above all to Yorkshire and Lancashire, where oatmeal was the everyday grain long after wheat became standard further south. Its association with Bonfire Night on 5 November is well established in nineteenth-century sources, and the older link is generally traced to the earlier autumn feast of All Souls and to local "Parkin Sunday" observances in the weeks before. The name's origin is uncertain; it is often said to derive from the surname Parkin, itself a diminutive of Peter, though no particular baker has ever been identified. That Cassell's gives two quite different methods, one a rolled paste baked in tartlet tins and one a batter, reflects how thoroughly regional and domestic the cake was.