the fable of the wolves - rhubarb ginger parkin

the fable of the wolves - rhubarb ginger parkin

27 Oct 2025

I've never made parkin before but as I love all things ginger I was pretty sure I'd be a fan. From my research it's a sturdy cake to be enjoyed on Bonfire Night. It's usually baked in a square tin or a loaf pan and can be served as dessert with stewed fruit and custard. In this version by Nadine Ingram, from her book Love Crumbs, she tops the parkin with a layer of oven roasted rhubarb. 

I barely altered the recipe other than to reduce the amount of sugar in the oven roasted rhubarb from 200g down to 75g. I oven roast rhubarb all the time and generally 75g is sufficient for a 500g bunch of rhubarb and I glazed the rhubarb with some of the reduced cooking liquid after the cake was baked. 

Here's the recipe for you which makes either an 8 inch square cake or a medium size loaf cake. The original recipe made a 20 x 30cm cake so I reduced the quantities by a third. For all my recipes I use a 250ml cup and a 20-ml tablespoon, unsalted butter and 60g eggs. My oven is a conventional gas oven so if your oven is fan forced you may need to reduce the oven temperature by 20°C. 

Rhubarb Ginger Parkin - makes an 8 inch square cake or a medium loaf cake

Baked Rhubarb
4 large rhubarb stalks

1 vanilla bean

75g caster sugar
1 orange, peeled into strips and juiced

Yorkshire Parkin
100g treacle
100g golden syrup
75g unsalted butter
75g brown sugar
100g oatmeal
75g plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
½ tsp bicarb soda
1½ tsp ground cinnamon
¼ tsp ground cloves
¼ tsp ground nutmeg
pinch ground allspice
1 tbs + 1 tsp ground ginger

pinch salt
2 eggs 
100ml buttermilk
2 pieces stem ginger, finely chopped or 1-2 tbs ginger marmalade (optional)

Baked Rhubarb
Preheat the oven to 160°C, fan forced. Cut the rhubarb stalks lengthways down the middle then cut into 9 cm-long batons. Arrange, in rows, in a baking dish.

Split the vanilla bean lengthwise down the middle and scrape the seeds out onto your chopping board. Sprinkle the seeds with 1-tablespoon caster sugar and use an offset palette knife to rub the sugar through the seeds. The friction from the sugar will disperse the tiny seeds evenly through the sugar and break up any clumps. Sprinkle the vanilla sugar and remaining caster sugar over the rhubarb, then add the orange peel and juice over the top of the fruit.

Bake for 20-25 minutes or until the rhubarb is softened. Bear in mind that once the rhubarb goes into the parkin, it will not cook any further, so baking the rhubarb to the point where it will be tender within the crumb of the cake will be important here. Test the stalks by pressing them with your finger: you're looking for them to 'squash’ under the pressure of your touch. Remove from the oven and set aside, keeping the oven on.

Yorkshire Parkin 
Line the base and sides of a 20 cm x 20 cm baking dish or Pullman loaf tin with baking paper. Place the treacle, golden syrup, butter and brown sugar in a small saucepan and bring the mixture almost to the boil, then remove the saucepan from the stove and allow to cool for 15 minutes.

Sift all the dry ingredients together into a medium bowl. You will find there will be coarser parts of the oatmeal remaining in the sieve, so just return the husks back to the bowl along with the dry ingredients. The purpose of this step is to aerate and distribute the spices through the flour, you will definitely appreciate the texture of those coarse oats as they will preserve the moisture in the cake.
Make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients and pour in the warm treacle mixture along with the eggs and buttermilk. Whisk everything together until well incorporated. The stem ginger can be added last and I highly recommend this addition; it provides pleasant spikes of ginger as you eat this deliciously warming cake.

Pour the batter into the prepared baking dish and smooth the top using an offset palette knife. Bake for 30 minutes or until a crust starts to form on the top of the cake. Remove the cake briefly from the oven at this stage and arrange the rhubarb batons across the top in rows, pressing them ever so slightly into the surface. Return the cake to the oven and reduce the temperature to 150°C, fan forced for a further 20-30 minutes. 

To test the cake is ready, use the sharp point of a small knife. The crumb of this cake should be left slightly sticky, so when you remove the knife, you should feel a little resistance. Rest assured, traces of raw batter will be obvious and, if this is the case, just return the cake to the oven in 5-minute increments to avoid overcooking.

The next step is optional. While the cake is baking, pour off the rhubarb syrup and place it in a small saucepan. Bring the syrup to a boil, then reduce the heat and simmer the liquid for a few minutes until it thickened. Once the cake is out of the oven, glaze the rhubarb by gently brushing it with the syrup. 

Place the cake on a cooling rack and let the cake cool completely before storing it in an airtight tin. The flavours improve with keeping and the cake becomes more sticky so try and resist eating it for at least 24 hours. The cake was quite chewy for the first day or two, so next time I'll soak the oats in buttermilk before making the cake just to jump start the softening process. Don't skip the rhubarb topping by the way as it's delicious.

See you all again next week with some more baking from my kitchen.

Bye for now,

Jillian

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upside down blood orange and almond cake

upside down blood orange and almond cake

20 Oct 2025

I was just about to fly overseas for 5 weeks when I realised I didn't have enough blog posts to cover me while I was away. I didn't want to buy any groceries so I looked around the kitchen and the fruit bowl looking for inspiration. I had a few blood oranges and a tangelo, so I knew whatever I made would be citrus flavoured.

Helen Goh has just launched her first book, Baking and the Meaning of Life, and some of the recipes have appeared online. I saw a photo of her Rhubarb, Vanilla & Almond Tessellated Cake and with a few tweaks it became an upside down blood orange and almond cake. I was going to bake it in a square tin but I rediscovered some of my old loaf tins whilst fossicking through my pot drawer, so it became a loaf cake.

Here's the recipe for you, inspired by a Helen Goh recipe, which will make either a small loaf cake or a 17cm square cake. For all my recipes, I use a 250 ml cup and a 20 ml tablespoon. All eggs are 60 grams and my oven is a conventional oven not fan forced, so you may need to reduce your oven temperature by 20°C. 

Upside down blood orange and almond cake 
Oranges
2-3 medium blood oranges 
2 tbs caster sugar

Cake
90g self-raising flour (I used GF)
pinch fine sea salt
100g almond meal
185g unsalted butter, cubed, at room temperature
185g caster sugar
4 tsps (minimum) grated orange rind
3 eggs, at room temperature
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 tbs warm marmalade or apricot jam thinned with 1 tbs water

Method
Grease and line the base and sides of a small loaf tin or a 17cm square tin with baking paper and set aside. Preheat the oven to 180°C, conventional.

Prepare the blood oranges
Grate the rind from 2 of the blood oranges and set aside. You'll use this to flavour the cake batter. Use a sharp knife to cut off all the pith exposing a colourful round of fruit. Place the orange on its side then slice the fruit as thinly as possible. Remove and discard any seeds from the slices and repeat until both oranges are sliced. If you don’t have enough slices to cover the base, then use half of the third orange. 

Sprinkle 2 tbs caster sugar over the base of the tin. Arrange the orange slices in an overlapping pattern across the bottom of the pan, covering the base completely and set aside.

The cake
Sift the flour and salt together in a small bowl. Add the ground almonds to combine, then set aside for the time being. Place the butter, sugar and the reserved orange rind into the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment and beat on medium speed for about 2 minutes, until light and fluffy.

Stop the mixer a couple of times to scrape down the bowl with a rubber spatula this will ensure it is evenly moved. Add the eggs, one at a time, and beat after each addition until combined, then spoon in half the flour mixture. Beat on low speed for about 10 seconds, until just incorporated then remove the bowl from the machine and fold in the remaining dry ingredients and vanilla extract with a rubber spatula.

Spoon the batter carefully over the blood orange slices and spread it with a spatula to form an even layer. Bake on the middle rack of the preheated 180°C, conventional for 1 hour, or until a skewer inserted into the middle of the cake comes out clean. Allow to cool for 10-15 minutes before turning the tin upside down onto a serving plate. 

For a nice shine you can glaze the top of the cooled cake with some warmed marmalade or apricot jam. The cake is lovely as is or can be served with some whipped cream. The cake is best served on the day it is made but may be kept in a cool place for up to 2 days.

This was a simply lovely butter cake. It had a perfect crumb, tender from the almond meal, with freshness from the blood orange. 

See you all again next week with some more baking from my kitchen.

Bye for now,

Jillian

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sourdough chocolate chip cookies

sourdough chocolate chip cookies

13 Oct 2025

I follow Edd Kimber, the inaugural winner of the Great British Bake Off, on both Instagram and substack. Recently he posted a recipe for sourdough chocolate chip cookies, which he first made during lockdown as a way to use up his sourdough discard. The discard comes from the daily feeding of the starter.

I've been making sourdough bread on a regular basis since the end of lockdown and I've worked out a method of feeding my starter which results in almost no discard, so I had to make a batch of starter. I also halved the recipe and made the cookies with a single egg yolk as suggested by Edd. The dough was a little dry so I'd suggest using a whole egg instead.

The recipe also suggests 250g of chocolate. I don't know about you, but chocolate prices have risen+++ recently and a 125g block of ALDI premium dark chocolate that used to retail for $2.79, now retails for $4.00. I'm not going to spend $8.00 on premium chocolate for chocolate chip cookies, so I used a bit less chocolate in my cookies and I don't think they suffered at all.

Here's the recipe for you, in Edd's own words, which makes 12 cookies. If you'd like to make a larger batch, check the original recipe (linked above) which yields 25 cookies. For all my recipes I use a 250ml cup and a 20-ml tablespoon, unsalted butter and 60g eggs. My oven is a conventional gas oven so if your oven is fan forced you may need to reduce the oven temperature by 20°C.

Sourdough Chocolate Chip Cookies - makes 12 cookies
Ingredients
112g unsalted butter, diced
190g plain flour
½ tsp baking powder
½ tsp baking soda
½ flaky sea salt
90g caster sugar
90g light brown sugar
1 egg
120g sourdough starter discard (100% hydration)
1 tsp vanilla extract
180g dark chocolate, roughly chopped

Method
Place the butter into a saucepan and over medium/high heat, cook until the butter melts, bubbles and then foams. Keep a close eye on it as it can burn quickly. When the milk solids have browned, the water will have evaporated so remove from the heat and set aside for 30 minutes or so, to cool slightly. Once browned, you should have 92g unsalted butter left. 

Whilst the butter is cooling, place the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt into a large bowl and whisk together to combine. When ready to make the cookies, place the cooled butter and sugars into a large bowl and using an electric mixer, fitted with the whisk attachment, whisk for a couple minutes to combine and to break up any lumps. Add the egg yolk and whisk for 2-3 minutes on medium/high. Don’t worry if it looks separated or greasy at the moment, it will come together once the starter has been added. 

Place the bowl on your scale and measure in the required sourdough discard, adding the vanilla as well. Mix in for a few minutes or until the mixture becomes smooth and fully combined. It should look a little like a thick cake batter. Add in the flour mixture and mix in on low speed, just until everything comes together and a dough has formed. Finally, switch to the paddle attachment and add the chocolate, mixing briefly until evenly distributed. 

Press a sheet of plastic wrap onto the surface of the cookie dough and refrigerate for at least 4 hours before baking (my preferred time frame to bake these is between 4-24 hours). 

When ready to bake, preheat the oven to 180⁰C, conventional, and line a couple baking trays with parchment paper. Roll the cookies into balls roughly 60g in size, placing 6 per baking tray, with plenty of space between each one as these will spread. Sprinkle the cookies with a little flaked sea salt. 

Bake in the preheated oven for about 16-18 minutes or until the cookies are lightly browned around the outside. If the cookies come out a little puffy looking, give the baking tray and firm tap on the counter to help them flatten a little. Allow to cool on the baking tray for 10 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely. 

Stored in a sealed container these will keep for 4-5 days. You can also freeze these balls of cookie dough for up to a month. Bake them straight from frozen with just a minute or two of extra bake time.

Is there anything better than a freshly baked still warm from the oven chocolate chip cookie? I don't think so?

See you all again next week, with some more baking from my kitchen.

Bye for now,

Jillian

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unruly raspberry and lemon buns

unruly raspberry and lemon buns

5 Oct 2025

I first found Cecilia Tolone, an American born pastry chef who now calls Sweden home making cinnamon or cardamom buns in her home kitchen during lockdown. For a number of years Cecilia worked as the head pastry chef at Frantzén in Stockholm, a 3 Michelin star restaurant. These days she runs a Saturday bakery from her home. There are 4 items in the pastry boxes that she makes and Cecilia always includes 2 kinds of buns. 

One week Cecilia made raspberry buns. I just love yeasted buns. I've made cinnamon buns, chocolate buns, lemon buns, rhubarb buns, passionfruit and custard buns, jam filled buns and blueberry buns, but I'd not made raspberry buns before. This oversight needed to be rectified so off to the kitchen I went. Please note this is not the recipe that Cecilia uses, this is my own tried and tested bun dough recipe, which I adapted from a Sarah Kieffer recipe.

Things didn't go as smoothly as I'd hoped. The day on which I made the buns was really cold, which made rolling out the bun dough very difficult. By the time I tried to roll the buns the filling had solidified meaning the raspberry pieces sprinkled over the butter filling went everywhere. My kitchen looked like a crime scene. 

After baking I glazed then topped my buns with some raspberry sugar which I made by whizzing 2 tbs sugar with some freeze dried raspberries. It's a nice touch but as freeze dried raspberries are hard to find, just use regular sugar or some pearl sugar instead.

I've recently changed the brand of dried yeast I use and had forgotten this brand is more active. As the bun dough proved and then baked, the scrolls I'd so carefully rolled all unravelled. If you're brave and would like to make a fancy bun, I've attached a link to the King Arthur Baking website with videos of the shaping process. Next time, I might reduce the quantity of yeast a little and ditch the fancy shaping and just roll them up like cinnamon buns. 

Here's the recipe for my unruly raspberry and lemon buns which makes 8 buns. For all my recipes, I use a 250 ml cup and a 20 ml tablespoon. All eggs are 60 grams and my oven is a conventional oven not fan forced, so you may need to reduce your oven temperature by 20°C. 

Raspberry and lemon buns
Dough
1¼ tsp yeast
150 mls lukewarm milk
30g caster sugar or honey
1 room temperature egg 
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 cups (300g) plain flour 
½ tsp salt
60g room temperature unsalted butter, cut into small pieces

Filling
100g caster sugar
4 tsp grated lemon rind
Pinch salt
80 g room temperature unsalted butter
1 tbs almond meal
75g frozen raspberries, roughly crushed

To finish
20g melted butter or cream

 
Lemon Syrup 
30g caster sugar
30mls water
30 mls lemon juice

Raspberry sugar (optional)
5g freeze dried raspberries
30g sugar
Pinch salt
1/8 tsp cinnamon

Dough
Grease a large plastic container and set to one side. Combine the yeast, milk and sugar in a large liquid measuring cup and rest for 5 minutes or until foamy then stir in the egg and the vanilla. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a dough hook, mix the flour and salt and stir on low to combine. Add the egg mixture and mix on low to combine. With the mixer on low, add the butter, one piece at a time. When all the butter has been incorporated (about 10 minutes), increase the speed to medium and beat the butter into the dough, until all the little butter pieces are incorporated, and the dough comes away from the side of the bowl. 

Transfer the dough to the prepared container. Cover the container with a lid or with plastic wrap and let rise for 30 minutes. Place your fingers or a spatula underneath the dough and gently pull the dough up and fold it back over itself. Turn the container and repeat this folding again. Continue 6 to 8 more times, until all the dough has been folded over on itself. Re-cover the container and let rise for 30 minutes. Repeat this series of folding 3 more times, for a rise time of 2 hours and a total of 4 foldings. Replace the lid or tightly cover the bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight or up to 72 hours.

Filling
Combine the sugar, lemon zest and a pinch of salt in a small bowl then using your fingers rub the lemon zest into the sugar. Add the remaining ingredients (other than the raspberries) and mix with a spoon until you have a smooth paste.
 
Shape the dough
Flour a work surface and knead the dough 10 to 12 times to activate the gluten. Shape the dough into a ball, cover the top lightly with flour, and cover with a tea towel and let come to room temperature. 

Grease and line 2 baking trays with baking paper and set to one side. Roll the dough out to a 12 x 16" rectangle on a lightly floured bench. Spread the filling over the dough then sprinkle the berry pieces over the filling.

Take the easy route. Roll the dough up from the long side and cut into 8 equal pieces and place on the prepared trays. Brush each bun with a little cream or melted butter then cover the buns loosely with plastic wrap and set aside in a warm place for an hour or until risen by half.

If you'd like to go fancy, then fold the dough like a letter. Starting on the right side, fold towards the left, making a crease roughly 1/3rd of the way (around 6.5” from the right edge). Press to adhere. Repeat the motion with the left side, folding from left to right, covering the first fold. Again, press the layers together to adhere. After folding, the dough block should measure roughly 12” by 6.5". Roll to extend the length of the block and remove any air bubbles, working the dough to about 16” by 8”.

Cut 8 or 9 strips. Gently twist the strip, then wrap the dough around itself into a knot, tucking the ends underneath. Place on the prepared tray. Brush each bun with a little cream or melted butter then cover the buns loosely with plastic wrap and set aside in a warm place for an hour or until risen by half. Video instructions for shaping are here

While the buns are proofing, prepare the lemon syrup and the raspberry sugar, if using.

Syrup
Combine sugar and water in a small saucepan over medium-low heat, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Mix in the lemon juice; bring to a simmer and cook for a few minutes until thickened. Take off the heat and set aside until needed.

Raspberry sugar
Place all the ingredients into a small food processor and whiz until well combined. Set aside until needed.

To bake
Preheat the oven to 180°C, conventional. Once the buns have risen, remove the plastic wrap and bake for 15-20 minutes, swapping the trays around halfway, until golden and cooked through. The interior should look fluffy and bready (not raw and stretchy) and should have an internal temperature 95-98°C.  Immediately after baking, brush the rolls with the glaze and then garnish with the sugar. Let the buns set for a few minutes before moving to a wire rack to cool completely. These are best eaten on the day of baking.

So how were my unruly buns? So delicious that I know I'll make them again.

See you all again next week with some more baking from my kitchen.

Bye for now,

Jillian

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