Yorkshire Parkin Recipe
You’l remember that a few weeks ago we told you that Green & Black’s Organic has teamed up with our very own local food champ and creative force behind the Yorkshire Pudd blog, Christopher Blackburn, to create a bespoke Yorkshire Parkin, using Green & Black’s chocolate to put a new twist on the historic recipe.
Well the great new is that the people of Harrogate absolutely loved it, so much so that I’ve been inundated with requests for the recipe, so here it is:
- 300g Self-Raising Wholemeal flour
- 50g Oatmeal
- 100g Molasses Sugar
- 160g Wensleydale Creamery Dales Butter
- 200g Golden Syrup
- 50g Black Treacle
- 1/2 tsp Bicarbonate of soda
- 1/2 tsp Baking powder
- 1/2 tsp Ground ginger
- 25g Chinese stem ginger, chopped
- 3 Free range eggs
- 75g Green & Black’s Milk Chocolate
- 75g Green & Black’s Dark 70% Chocolate
- 100ml Water
Method
- Gently melt sugar, butter and syrup together in a saucepan. Remove from heat and add chocolate, stir until smooth.
- Sift dry ingredients together
- Pour melted chocolate mixture onto dry, add eggs, water and stem ginger and mix thoroughly.
- Fits 22cm x 22cm deep tin, lined with greaseproof paper
- Bake in fan oven at 160 degrees for 45 mins, or until fully baked. For best results, once cooled cover with cling film and leave to soften for 2 days or up to a week.
- 300ml Double cream
- 200g Caster sugar
- 50g Unsalted butter
- 2g Vanilla extract
- 2g Sea salt crystals
Method
- Add the sugar to a heavy based saucepan (copper is preferable, but not essential), along with 50ml of cold water.
- Place on a high heat and stir until the sugar has dissolved.
- Leave to boil until the syrup starts to turn a golden caramel colour – you must not stir at all during this stage, otherwise the sugar will crystalise and become lumpy.
- Once the colour has started to turn caramel in colour, turn the heat down to medium, lift the pan and very gently swirl the contents around to make sure everything is cooking evenly.
- Leave on the heat until golden brown, and just starting to smoke.
- This is your cue to add the butter and continually stir in to the caramel. The mixture will bubble up, but shouldn’t spit, so just try to keep your hands a good distance from the steam (a long rubber spatula or wooden spoon is ideal here).
- Once the butter has been fully incorporated pour a little of the cream in, stirring continuously. Once again this will bubble and steam, so please be careful. Keep adding in stages until the cream has been fully mixed in.
- Add the vanilla extract and half of the salt, set aside to cool. pIt’s nice to save the other half of the salt to mix in or sprinkle on top later, for an occasional hit of salt.
- 5 x ripe dessert pears, such as Conference or Williams
- 750g granulated sugar
- 750ml water
- Zest and juice of one lemon
- Zest and juice of one lime
- 1 star anise
- 2 cloves
- 1 cinnamon stick
Method
- Peel and core the pears, keeping submerged in water until needed to reduce them browning.
- Add all other ingredients to a narrow saucepan (it’s important that the pears are fully covered by the water).
- Bring to the boil, reduce to a gentle simmer and add the pears.
- Place a cartouche (a circular piece of greaseproof paper) over the top of the pears; this will help to keep the tops of the pears moist if they rise above the water line.
- Simmer for 20 to 30 minutes, or until a small knife easily goes through the centre of one of the pears.
- Remove from the heat, and leave the pears to cool in the syrup.
- For best results leave overnight or up to one week before using.