On the fifth of November, all over England, people gather around bonfires and fireworks with something warm in their hands. In Yorkshire and Lancashire, that something is very often parkin: a dark, sticky cake made with oats, treacle and plenty of ginger. It smells of autumn, it fills you up in the cold air, and it tastes like childhood to a lot of people.
The classic version is generous with butter, golden syrup and sugar. Here I’ve kept the treacle, because parkin isn’t parkin without it, and let soft dates do part of the sweetening. Oats and wholemeal spelt flour bring fibre, so a slice feels satisfying and doesn’t send you straight back to the tin. If sweet cravings tend to take over on dark evenings, I wrote about where they come from and what helps.
I bake them as little loaves, which makes them easy to share at a bonfire or to slip into a lunch box. And here’s the old parkin secret: wrap them up and wait a day or two before eating. They turn moister and stickier as they rest.
Lighter Parkin with Oats, Ginger and Dates
Ingredients
For the parkin
Instructions
Why wait?
Parkin softens and gets stickier as it rests. It keeps for up to a week in an airtight tin.
Make it gluten-free
Use certified gluten-free oats and replace the spelt flour with buckwheat flour or a gluten-free flour mix.
No mini tins?
Bake it in a square tin and cut it into 16 small squares once cool.
Per serving (about)
1 little loaf: 5 g protein, 4 g fibre.
