Parkin: what the Bonfire Night cake is, what to order, what to avoid

Overview

Parkin is a dark, heavy, ginger-spiced cake made with oatmeal and black treacle, baked in a shallow tray and cut into squares. The oats are what make it parkin rather than gingerbread: they give it a close, slightly gritty crumb and a chew that ordinary sponge never has. The treacle — the dark, bitter end of the sugar-refining process, closer to molasses than to syrup — gives it the color and the faint burnt edge. Golden syrup, butter or lard, flour and ground ginger do the rest.

It is not York’s own. Parkin belongs to the north of England in general, and to Yorkshire and Lancashire in particular, both of which claim it and both of which make it. What York has is a better reason than most places to eat it in November: parkin is the cake of Bonfire Night, the fifth of November, which marks the failure of the Gunpowder Plot of 1605 to blow up Parliament — and Guy Fawkes, the plotter whose effigy goes on the bonfire, was born in this city and baptized in April 1570 at St Michael le Belfrey, the church beside the Minster. The tie between the cake and the date is old: by the 1860s it was the traditional food of the night in parts of Yorkshire and Lancashire, and in Leeds the fifth of November was known as Parkin Night. When the custom began is not recorded.

The rest of its history is softer. Where the name comes from is unknown, and the cake is often said to descend from older oatcakes baked in the north around the start of winter, before bonfires were tied to the plot. That is plausible but not settled; treat it as folklore that fits rather than as history.

The single fact worth carrying is one that runs against instinct: parkin is better old than fresh. Straight out of the oven it is firm and a little dry. Wrapped and left for several days, often a week, the treacle draws moisture back through it and the top turns tacky and dark. That stickiness is the point, and it is why parkin was made ahead of the night it was eaten.

What to order

There is not much vocabulary, but there is a real difference between versions, and the words on the label tell you which one you are getting.

• Parkin, on its own, should mean oats, treacle and ginger, cut in squares. Dark brown, dense enough to hold its shape cleanly when picked up, and with a top that sticks slightly to the paper.
• Yorkshire parkin is the name you will see most often here. There is no agreed recipe that separates it from the Lancashire kind, and anyone who tells you the difference with great confidence is reporting a family habit, not a rule.
• Sticky parkin or a note that it has been “matured” or “left to rest” is the seller telling you it has had its days in the tin. That is the version to choose.
• Parkin with custard is the pudding form: a square warmed and served in a bowl with hot custard poured over. It turns a teatime cake into something closer to a dessert.

Eaten the plain way, parkin is finger food: a square in a napkin, outdoors, often with a hot drink in the other hand. Asking for it warmed is ordinary.

What to avoid

The risk with parkin is not a bad kitchen; it is a different cake wearing the name.

The commonest substitute is a dark ginger cake with no oatmeal in it. It looks right in a cabinet and is lighter and springier than parkin should be, with a fine, even crumb and no chew. Press the square: parkin barely gives, ginger cake bounces back. If the ingredients are on a label, oats or oatmeal should be near the top of the list.

The second is parkin sold too young. A square that is pale at the edges, crumbly, and dry to the touch on top has probably been baked that morning, which is fine for a sponge and a missed week for this. It is still parkin; it is simply not yet the thing people wait for.

Be wary too of the cellophane-wrapped slab sold beside the fudge and the tea towels. Long-life packaged parkin is usually made for shelf rather than flavor, sweeter and softer from added syrup, and it tends to taste of sugar where the real thing tastes of treacle and spice.

Finally, the season. A sign announcing parkin in July is not a warning in itself, since some bakeries make it all year. A counter that brings it out only as a seasonal novelty deserves the press test above more than one where it sits quietly in a tray every autumn.

Practicalities

Parkin starts appearing as the evenings close in, in October, and peaks in the days before the fifth of November, when bakeries make it in quantity and it turns up at bonfire gatherings and fireworks displays. Outside the autumn it is less certain but not rare: bakeries across Yorkshire make it commercially, so it is not only a November cake. If you are in York in the weeks before Bonfire Night, buy a square a few days before the fifth rather than on the night: the trays baked for it are already resting by then, and the ones sold on the day are the last of them.

A single square from a bakery or café counter costs roughly £2 to £4. A whole slab or tray to take away runs to around £8 to £15, depending on size. A very cheap square is usually the packaged kind.

It travels and keeps, which makes it a good thing to carry home. Wrapped in paper inside a tin it lasts a week or more and improves for the first part of it. Kept in plastic on a warm shelf, it sweats and goes soggy rather than sticky.

And at home, if a square has gone hard, a short warm-through brings it back.