Perfect Parkin, Pantry style

I can't believe that it was four years ago when I first blogged a parkin recipe. So much has happened since, but throughout all those changes my parkin recipe has remained the same.Well the same if you look at the penultimate paragraph where I listed my changes. Reading it today I realised that the adjustments aren't exactly clear, so I thought I'd reblog it. 

The parkin recipe is brought out annually, around Halloween and Guy Fawkes, the ginger and cinammon punch being perfect for this kind of weather, and it being a fabulously sticky cake makes it perfectly portable - ideal for fireworks displays and I've even wrapped it up in halloweeny napkins and given it out to Trick or Treaters and none have complained yet. 

Perfect Parkin, Pantry style
Serves 16
Dairy free

125g unsalted butter - or Pure/ Vitalite dairy free spread 
175g golden syrup
125g black treacle
125g golden caster sugar
250g plain flour
200g medium oatmeal
4 tsps ground ginger
2 tsps ground cinnamon
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt (or use salted butter)
1 egg beaten
1 tblsp milk - or almond milk

Grease and line a 10" by 10" brownie pan
Preheat the oven to 150 degrees

In a large bowl or mixer, put the flour, oatmeal, ginger, cinnamon, salt and baking soda
In a saucepan melt together the butter, syrup, treacle and sugar over a low heat, stir constantly until you can't hear or feel the grains of the sugar
Pour the mixture from the pan into the bowl or mixer and mix together
Add the egg and milk, beating again until all combined

Pour the cake batter into the prepared tin, put in the now preheated oven and cook for 40 minutes

And there you have it - Perfect Parkin, pantry style. Enjoy! 

Meal Planning Monday: limping along

Well hello, and apologies for the hiatus in posting this last week. It's that time of year when, as the nights start to draw in, I start to battle overtiredness and colds and fitting everything in just starts to become a bit more tricky.

That said, this week in the Pantry should be a nice one. M and I are both at home, after a lovely weekend, and looking forward to some time together.

Baking wise, I've got a pumpkin and apple traybake to bake and have promised M a batch of my Practically Perfect Parkin.

Breakfasts: I think this will be my last packet of granola, after this I'll be heading steadily into porridge. But until this is finished, granola with chopped bananas and some extra sultanas is the meal of choice.

Lunchtimes: Because we've been away this weekend I've not had time to make any soup, but am hoping to knock up a batch one evening this week. So soup it is - Maybe of the Lifechanging variety.

Dinners:

Monday:

Tuesday:

Wednesday: Turkey, barley and pumpkin casserole

Thursday: I'm at Brownies, so leftovers afterwards.

Friday:  Italian sausage and pasta bake - see post later in the week for details.

Meal Planning Monday: baking central

It's Monday evening and I've just sat down to write my meal planning Monday post. Which isn't a good start really. That said, I knew at 7am this morning what I would be having for dinners this week so it's not too much of a crisis.

It's another truncated week in the pantry, but to make up for that I seem to have squeezed as much baking as possible into this evening - not only a brilliant stress reliever (sleepless night last night and very busy at work) but also productive too.

I do have a veg box coming tomorrow, but whilst most of the fruit will be comandeered to come with me to Poole, the veg will be left in the fridge, awaiting a more domestic week next week.

Also this weekend I received a fantastic box of freefrom goodies from Sainsburys, Mark is taste testing the coffee and walnut slices in his packed lunches, and as yet his only comment is that they're 'too small' which is clear praise. Next week I'm going to try the bagels (and will be treating myself to some smoked salmon and cream cheese to really enjoy them as they're meant to be).

So, after four hours of sleep, seven hours at work, 50mg sumatriptan, too many tastes of golden syrup, one evening, two parkins made and baked, one cottage pie, an exploding potato and Herman being fed - what does my meal plan look like?

Monday: leftover roast beef, baked potatoes, carrots, sweetcorn and broccoli

Tuesday: Cottage pie (made with the rest of the roast beef) and topped with some of our homegrown potatoes, cooked and mashed with their skins on, with brocolli and sweetcorn

We'll also be making Herman the leaven into cake tomorrow. Herman is a German friendship cake (much like the Amish friendship bread I made some time ago) leaven that was given to me as a thank you by my upstairs neighbour for her iced buns last week. We're going down the traditional apple route tomorrow, then will give away one and I'm going to experiment on the last batch and try and turn it into a sourdough leaven like Mabel.

Wednesday - Thursday I'll be working away.

Friday & Saturday we'll be visiting Mark's parents and I'll be lining up another first for the blog - Christmas pudding! I'm already excited!

So that's my week in the pantry, be sure to pop over to At Home with Mrs M to see what everyone else is up to

Sunday's marathon bake off

Which is being done with John Barrowman covering Elaine Paige's Radio 2 Show as my soundtrack, when that finishes I'll move over to itunes and shuffle some more showtunes, because as well you know, I'm just that cool.

A dead oven and the workload from hell have conspired against much blogging of late, but with one of those sorted (not the workload sadly) I thought today would be a good day to throw myself up to my elbows in flour and the likes.

I decided this month's freezer meals would be the Lentil Ragu, of Dinner Diary infamy; seriously, it's spreading across the blogosphere faster than swine flu - but in a good way, obviously. However, a consensus was reached after my first batch; whilst tasty, filling and healthy myself and a few friends really felt it needed something added to it (apparently the piles of grated cheese just weren't enough). Jules of Domestic Goddess in Training suggested bacon, and another friend suggested chorizo. Elin, that friend has also recently converted me to the ways of Waitrose's Butternut squash and chorizo chilli and so I went with that recommendation. Brava Elin! As well as the oomph (it's a technical term) that I felt it was missing, the chorizo really complemented the flavours. Alongside the Dinner diary recipe I added a whole chorizo from Asda - about 300g (which handily was on 2 for £4.00 which means that next week I can use up the frozen half of the butternut squash and make the chilli too for no more money! Thrifty and tasty.)

I also added - just because they were in the freezer really - some grated red cabbage and carrots that I felt needed using up. I think that accounts for the darkness of the ragu this time, and clearly the extra vegetables cancel out the chorizo. Honest.

Lentil ragu not being enough, I kept to the pattern of the last three months and roasted a free range chicken, some potatoes and piles of carrots and broccoli. Since the weather started to turn I've really got back into the swing of doing a roast on a Sunday, having leftovers on Monday night, and sarnies on Monday and Tuesday for lunches, then stripping the chicken - using the carcass for stock, and the meat for a risotto with mushrooms and chicken using the stock, then freezing the last pint or so of the stock for some soup. As it's only Monday night I've obviously not done that yet, but it's a really effective way of stretching the £6 chicken over *counts* about 10 meals, which works out at about 60p per portion chicken wise.

My first batch of parkin was also knocked up as I was out gallivanting with the Brownies on Bonfire night (we had a fireworks promise party) I didn't make it then, and I was out gallivanting again on the Saturday so didn't make it up to Alexandra Palace either. Anyway, using my amended recipe from last year I made a lovely sticky batch. Although I should say, I opened a new jar of ground ginger yesterday and heaven only knows what Waitrose do to their ginger but I swear it's rocket powered! This batch certainly has a kick to it. I'm taking it into work tomorrow and then if there's any left on to Guides for the Parent's meeting before my holiday licence in December. If I'm not too stressed, I'm planning to try and blog our menu.

Did I make anything else? Yes, apple crumble, now in the freezer. And Mabel's still doing well, hopefully coming out of the freezer on Wednesday to be trialled as focaccia on Thursday and if that goes well then pizza base on Guide holiday.

Oh and short of rhyming it with Yentl, I really couldn't link lentils to a musical... as always when my brain fails me, answers on a postcard please!

Practically Perfect...

...in every way

Practically perfect

That's my forte...

Or so Mary Poppins tells us. I like to hold on to my vague delusions that split ends, broken fingernails and eminently unsensible shoes aside I can channel that uncanny Nanny with the best of them. Apparently, I'm "frightfully" good at this when nervous at American stage doors. However, my ability to divest myself of my Essex accent and acquire received pronounciation the Queen herself would be proud of is not the purpose of todays blog. Parkin is. Practically Perfect Parkin infact.

The weather outside is bitter but clear and the fireworks are in full force. It's Guy Fawkes night tomorrow, and as at the weekend we're off to see a potentially fabulous fireworks display I decided last week to have a trial run of cake to take with me. Thinking about the final destination of said cake I decided that I wanted to bake something dense, sticky and spicy. I was torn between my Mum's gingerbread and trying something new; parkin. With a blog post in mind I chose parkin and trawled my cookery books for a recipe, but nothing caught my eye. I remembered that Jules over at Domestic Goddess in Training: Piles of Parkin had made some recently, and decided to take my inspiration from her recipe (also borrowed from A pot of tea and a biscuit).

Parkin from A Pot of Tea and a Biscuit

125 g butter (if using unsalted butter add 1 tsp salt)

125 g golden syrup

125 g black treacle

125 g golden caster sugar

250 g plain flour

250 g medium oatmeal

4 teaspoons ground ginger

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 egg, beaten

1) Preheat oven to 150°C/Gas 2/300°F and line a 10x10 baking pan. Gently heat the butter, golden syrup, treacle and sugar in a pan, stirring constantly until all the sugar is dissolved.

2) In a bowl sift together flour, oatmeal, baking soda, salt (if using), ginger and cinnamon. Make a well in the centre and pour in the melted butter mixture, beat until everything is combined.

3) When combined add the egg and mix until you have a smooth soft batter. If the batter seems to be stiff add 1tbsp of milk

4) Pour into the tin and bake 50-60 minutes. Allow to cool before removing and cut into squares

Coming out of the oven the parkin looked and smelled fantastic, but when I cut into it I was dissapointed at how bready it seemed. I had read up on parkin and knew that this could be the case with it, but was prepared with my tin to store it and wait for it to get moister (is that even a word?)

Yep so that was Friday, today is Tuesday and the bloody stuff is still dry. I've tried popping an apple in the tin, everything. I mean don't get me wrong, it's edible. There may only be one piece left it's clearly that edible (especially when eaten the Lancashire way, with butter and cheese - or so my colleague tells me), but it's still annoyingly dry if not accompanied by a mug of good, strong tea, so of course it would have been shockingly rude not to eat it that way(!)

Remember the pastry? How I refused to give up? Well it's not a one off on the tenacity front it would seem. Last night, despite not getting in from work till late, I rolled up my sleeves, donned my pinny and attempted a second batch. Having taken advice from my usual source of inspiration, the good ladies at the f&d forums at handbag, I decided to up the amount of golden syrup by 50g, reduce the oatmeal by the same and add milk regardless. I also reduced the cooking time to 40 minutes (but I have an uber enthusiastic fan oven so I would judge that entirely by your own oven). I'll be honest I had visions of opening the door to parkin soup, even though the batter hadn't looked that different going in, but all was not lost. Because I'm a lazy bint I covered the cake and left it in the tin overnight, and at 6.30am this morning was to be found cutting cake and putting it in tupperware (this does not bode well for my hopes of not turning into my mother as I age). Oh did I mention, I was putting, spicy, sticky, utterly, perfect parkin in tupperware at 6.30am. Yes people... Practically Perfect Parkin has been achieved. *insert smug smile and a few more verses of Practically Perfect here*

Sadly, Parkin mark 2 has been so Pop-uhu-lar *tosses hair* I now need to make another batch for Saturday, for safetys sake (and for there to be a hope in hell of any of it making it to the fireworks display) I'll wait till Friday for that one.