PARKIN

As a lad in Yorkshire we always seemed to have some parkin about the house, but you don't hear of it anywhere else. I came across a recipe a while ago, well two actually - one for Yorkshire Parkin, and another for the Cheshire version. I made the yorkshire version, but it came out far too dark and treacly for my liking (but we ate it anyway) and I've recently come across this recipe which uses both fresh and ground ginger. I made a batch a few days ago, which is now all gone, a good sign. I've been making a few curries and meals containing plenty of ginger and garlic lately to keep the kids from getting congested, so there's plenty of ginger left to use up.

Recipe:
100g Butter
250g Soft Dark Brown or Muscovado Sugar
125g golden syrup
125g treacle (not wishing to use treacle, I meant to substitute this for extra golden syrup but completely forgot to compensate when measuring...)
150ml dark ale or porter (I used Theakstons Old Peculier)
2cm piece of fresh ginger, peeled and finely grated
150g fine oatmeal (I used normal porridge oats in the blender)
2 large eggs
250g plain flour
3 level teaspoons ground ginger (I also added nutmeg)
3 level teaspoons baking powder (I completely forgot this also, this could have something to do with it not rising...)
which just goes to show, don't start baking when you're too tired to think... this is hopelessly wrong - nice taste, but it's a dense slab of dough with the texture of a wet towel.