Paleo Yorkshire Parkin

Parkin is a gingerbread cake typically made with oats and treacle and is traditionally eaten on Guy Fawkes Night/Bonfire Night (5th November). What makes it Yorkshire Parkin (mmm Yorkshire Parkin) is the addition of treacle whereas Lancashire Parkin uses golden syrup (bleurghhh). You’ll be very pleased to know that you won’t be finding any of that junk in my recipe however – just good old fashioned maple syrup, blackstrap molasses, and coconut sugar. This is still very high in sugars so please just eat this on Bonfire night and be done with it!

Parkin isn’t just any old cake it’s a beautifully soft yet sticky cake, and it isn’t one that can be eaten as soon as it is baked – you absolutely must leave it to mature for at least 3 days in order for those beautiful flavours to be released and for it to become perfectly sticky! I found that a little over a week was the best amount of time to leave it for, in the photos it’s at just under 3 days and so isn’t fully moist throughout, the longer that you leave the stickier it gets and the flavours become immense!

I used maple syrup rather than honey in this recipe as I thought that it would have more of a similar taste to using brown sugar and ground almonds rather than almond flour to give it that slightly ‘gritty’ and oaty like texture.

The weather is getting colder, the nights are getting darker, and all I want to do is wrap up in a big wooly jumper with a hot mug of spiced herbal tea and eat something with those delicious dark and black treacle toffee like flavours. Parkin is the ultimate comforting and sticky, spiced cake. When those fireworks start to go off I’ll be guaranteed to be carting some of this with me to enjoy the show.

Ingredients:

1/3 cup maple syrup/raw honey
1/3 cup plus 2 tbsp blackstrap molasses
1/4 cup coconut sugar
100g raw grass-fed butter
1 cup tapioca flour
2 tbsp baking powder
2 tbsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp bicarbonate of soda
2 eggs
250g ground almonds

Method:

1. Pre-heat your oven to 140°C/Gas Mark 1. Line a 9″ x 5″ loaf tin with baking parchment and grease. Set aside until needed.
2. Combine your maple syrup/raw honey, blackstrap molasses, coconut sugar, and butter into a small heavy bottomed saucepan and heat on a low heat until the ingredients become liquid. Do not allow the contents to simmer or boil!
3. Whilst you are waiting for your sugars and butter to melt combine the remaining ingredients except for your eggs and ground almonds into a food processor and process until smooth.
4. Once melted very slowly pour the melted sugars and butter down the food processor’s feed tube whilst processing. Once you have finished pouring stop the processor and scrape down the sides using a silicone spatula and process again until smooth.
5. Next pulse in your eggs before blending until smooth. Fold in your ground almonds and pour the mixture into your greased loaf tin.
6. Place the loaf tin onto the middle shelf of your oven and cook for 1 hour – 1 1/2 hours until cooked the full way through. If you feel that the parkin is burning simply cover the tin with tin foil with the shiny side facing upward.
7. Once cooked leave to cool in the tin for 30 minutes before turning out onto a wire rack. Your parkin will probably sink in the middle but don’t worry – to me it’s the sign of the most perfect parkin you can eat!
8. Once fully cooled wrap in baking parchment/greaseproof paper, secure with a layer or tin foil, and store in an airtight container in a cool, dry cupboard for at least 3 days to let it mature.  Mine has been in the cupboard for about a week and a half and it just keeps on getting better!