Keef Cooks logo
British food-lover Keef shows you how to cook amazing food with easy to follow recipes and videos. So stop wasting your time and money on takeaways or supermarket ready meals, and Get Cooking!

Yorkshire Parkin

Introduction & method

Parkin is pretty much a northern English thing. Some versions are made with golden syrup and are quite light, but the Yorkshire version of parkin uses black treacle (molasses) and oats and has quite an earthy flavour. Try to make it a few days ahead of when you intend to eat it because it really does improve with age.

Yorkshire Parkin Recipe

Make the Batter


In a small saucepan on medium-low heat, melt together the butter, golden syrup, black treacle and sugar. In a large bowl, mix the flour, baking powder, ground ginger, then the oats. Add the pan liquid and stir well. Whisk the egg and milk together and stir into the batter.

If you have time, leave the batter in the fridge overnight, or for a few hours at least. This will help the oats absorb some of the moisture.

Bake the Parkin


Preheat your oven to 140°C (284°F) for a fan/convection oven, or  160°C (320°F) for a conventional one, gas 3. If you have an air fryer, you can bake the parking in that and use much less energy than a full-size oven.

Traditionally, parkin is made as a loaf, but you can do it as a traybake if you like, and cut it into squares. Line a loaf tin or roasting tin with greaseproof paper or a silicone mat and pour the batter in - for a traybake it should be about 3-4cm (about an inch and a half) deep. For a loaf the batter should come almost to the top. Bake the parkin for 60-75 minutes. You can check whether it's done by inserting a skewer into the centre - if it comes out dry the parkin is done. Tip it out onto a wire rack to cool. If you're making a traybake, cut off the crusty edges and cut the rest into squares.



The video above is from the Keef Cooks YouTube channel. Click here to see the video recipe of Yorkshire Parkin on YouTube.

 

Ingredients & Info


BATTER
 200 grams self-raising flour
 150 grams golden syrup
 150 grams black treacle
 115 grams butter
 115 grams demerara sugar
 100 grams oats
 100 ml milk
 1 egg
 2 tsp baking powder
 4 tsp ground ginger

PLUS

You can substitute corn syrup for golden syrup, and molasses for black treacle.


UNITS:
Metric
US Customary/Imperial

Makes 1 loaf or tray
Prep time: 10 minutes.
Cooking time: 60 minutes.
Total time: 1 hour 10 minutes.