Hairy Bikers parkin recipe is a soft, syrupy ginger cake built on self-raising flour rather than the usual oatmeal. So 115g of golden syrup and one teaspoon of ground ginger carry the whole thing, which gives eight slices at roughly 275 calories. That version is theirs from Meals on Wheels on BBC Two, and it needs 2 hours 15 minutes including cooling.
In Make It Easy they say they loved parkin as kids, and that it is “even better a couple of days after it’s made”. That same book carries a second Hairy Bikers parkin, which puts oatmeal, black treacle and figs into a recipe the BBC one leaves plain.
The oven stays at 150°C for a full hour, and that low setting is where people go wrong. Because golden syrup and brown sugar colour fast, a hotter oven sets the crust before the very wet middle has cooked.
Hairy Bikers Parkin Recipe
Description
Melted butter and golden syrup go into spiced flour, then beaten egg and milk loosen it into a pourable batter. Then one hour in a cool oven sets it, though the flavour needs two days in a tin before it peaks.
Ingredients
For the dry mix
For the wet mix
Instructions
- Heat the oven: Set it to 150°C/Fan 130°C/Gas 2, then line a 20cm cake tin with baking paper. And the batter is loose enough to find any gap.
- Mix the dry: Sieve the flour into a big bowl, then whisk in the sugar, ginger, bicarbonate of soda and salt. And whisking is what spreads the bicarb evenly.
- Melt the syrup: Warm the butter and golden syrup in a small pan until the butter melts, then take it off. Keep it well off the boil.
- Beat the egg: Crack it into a jug with the milk and beat, so it will not scramble in the warm syrup.
- Bring it together: Pour the syrup into the flour bit by bit while stirring, then add the egg and milk. Keep stirring until the batter pours easily.
- Bake it low: Pour the batter into the tin and bake for one hour, until a skewer comes out clean.
- Cool and wrap: Leave it in the tin until completely cold, then wrap it in foil or cling film. Keep it in an airtight tin for two days before cutting.
FAQs
Is this the same parkin as the BBC or Mary Berry version?
This is the BBC one, since it comes from their Meals on Wheels series on BBC Two. So if you searched for a BBC parkin, you have already found it. And Mary Berry is a different baker with a parkin of her own, which is where a lot of the confusion comes from.
Why is there no oatmeal in this parkin?
Traditional Yorkshire parkin is roughly half medium oatmeal, which is what gives it that chewy, slightly gritty bite people remember. But this one leaves the oatmeal out completely, so the crumb comes out soft and close to gingerbread. That bothers purists, and a home baker blogging the recipe in 2011 said flatly that without oats or treacle it is not really parkin.
And she had a point, though it is still the cake they baked on television. And their lighter ginger sponge sits at the other end, where 240ml of just-boiled water opens the crumb right up.
What is the other Hairy Bikers parkin?
The second one is called Ginger Parkin and it sits in Make It Easy, their reduced-sugar book. That is a different cake in almost every way, since it adds 150g of oatmeal and 50g of black treacle. And 200g of soft figs get simmered down into a syrup, which does the sweetening a lot of the sugar used to do.
That ginger jumps from one teaspoon to two tablespoons, so it hits far harder, and it bakes at 180°C for about 30 minutes. Then you get 25 small squares at 150 calories each instead of eight slices, which tells you how differently it is meant to be eaten.
How long does parkin keep, and is it really better after two days?
Yes, and this is the one bit of parkin lore that holds up. So golden syrup and brown sugar are hygroscopic, which means they pull moisture from the air and move it through the crumb. That turns a dryish day-one parkin into something properly sticky by day three, so wrap it in foil and keep it airtight.
That fig version keeps a couple of weeks in a tin, because the oatmeal and fruit hold moisture that this plainer batter does not. And their ginger cake from British Classics works the same way, since that one also asks you to wrap it and wait. So their boiled fruit cake needs the same patience, because the book says to give it at least two days before cutting.
What do you serve with parkin on Bonfire Night?
Parkin is a 5 November cake in Yorkshire and Lancashire, where it gets cut into squares and handed round outside next to the sparklers. And it wants something hot to drink rather than something rich on the plate, so strong tea beats cream or custard.
Then a wedge of sharp Wensleydale is the other traditional pairing, which sounds odd until the salt hits the syrup. And if you are feeding a crowd, their treacle and ginger scones are out of the oven in 15 minutes.
