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