Yorkshire Parkin Recipe

Yorkshire parkin is a dark, dense treacle and oatmeal cake that has been baked across the county since at least the early eighteenth century, traditionally around Bonfire Night. This is the classic Yorkshire version — built on black treacle rather than golden syrup, thickened with oatmeal rather than plain flour, and, crucially, left to mature in a tin for several days before it’s cut. The full ingredients, timings and step-by-step method are in the recipe card below.

Yorkshire Parkin

The classic Yorkshire version of parkin: a dark, sticky treacle and oatmeal cake, baked low and slow, then matured in an airtight tin for several days before eating.

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Prep Time 15 minutes mins

Cook Time 1 hour hr

Course Snack

Cuisine English

Servings 16 squares

Ingredients

  

• 200 g black treacle
• 100 g golden syrup
• 175 g butter
• 100 g soft dark brown sugar
• 200 g medium oatmeal
• 125 g self-raising flour
• 2 tsp ground ginger
• 1 tsp mixed spice
• salt a pinch
• 1 egg large, beaten
• 4 tbsp milk

Instructions

 

• Preheat the oven to 140°C fan / 160°C conventional / gas mark 3. Grease a 20cm square tin and line the base and sides with baking parchment.
• Put the black treacle, golden syrup, butter and sugar in a saucepan and heat gently until the butter has melted and the sugar has dissolved. Don't let it boil.
• In a large bowl, mix the medium oatmeal, self-raising flour, ground ginger, mixed spice and salt.
• Pour the warm treacle mixture into the dry ingredients and stir until smooth, then beat in the egg and milk. The batter will be quite loose and wet — that's normal for parkin.
• Pour into the prepared tin and bake for 55–65 minutes, until risen and firm to the touch, with a skewer coming out just clean.
• Cool completely in the tin. Wrap the whole cake (or cut squares) in greaseproof paper and store in an airtight tin for at least 3–5 days before eating — parkin is dry and cakey straight from the oven, and only turns properly moist, dark and sticky after resting. It keeps well for up to two weeks and gets better the longer you leave it.

Notes

Don't be tempted to cut into this early. Parkin straight from the oven is dry and cakey; it's only after several days resting in an airtight tin that the oats soften and the treacle works all the way through, giving parkin its proper dense, sticky texture.

Tips and variations

The single most important step with parkin isn’t in the oven, it’s what happens afterwards. Wrap the cooled cake in greaseproof paper, put it in an airtight tin and leave it well alone for at least three to five days. Cut into it too soon and you’ll get a perfectly pleasant ginger cake; wait, and the oats soften, the treacle works right through the crumb, and it turns properly sticky and dark — which is the whole point of parkin. It keeps for a good two weeks in the tin, getting better as it goes, and it also freezes well, so there’s no harm baking it well ahead of Bonfire Night.

Yorkshire parkin traditionally leans on black treacle for its colour and deep, slightly bitter edge, while parkin from over the Pennines in Lancashire uses more golden syrup and comes out lighter and sweeter — feel free to shift the balance if you prefer a milder cake. Medium oatmeal (not rolled porridge oats) gives parkin its characteristic nubbly texture; if you can only find porridge oats, a brief pulse in a food processor gets you close enough. It’s also a properly cheap bake — treacle, oatmeal and a few spices go a long way, and a single tin easily stretches to sixteen squares.

If old-fashioned bakes like this are your sort of thing, you may also enjoy our Mrs Robins Fruit Cake, another traditional boiled-method cake that only gets better with a day or two’s rest before it’s sliced.