Chocolate parkin with marbled custard
- Published: 9 Feb 24
- Updated: 10 Oct 24
Sticky Yorkshire parkin is taken to chocolate town with this indulgent bake – but the sauce definitely shares star billing. The warm chocolate and ginger custard is rippled with cinnamon-and-clove-infused cream for a knockout finish that’s as good for a relaxed family supper as it is for a dinner party with friends.
Discover our black forest twist on the traditional bakewell tart, too.
- Makes 9
- Hands-on time 20 min, plus infusing and at least 2 hours cooling. Oven time 50 min
Ingredients
- 100g unsalted butter, plus extra to grease
- 100g black treacle
- 200g golden syrup
- 100g dark brown muscovado sugar
- 150g self-raising flour
- 50g cocoa powder
- 2 tsp ground ginger
- ½ tsp ground cinnamon
- ¼ tsp ground cloves
- 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
- 100g porridge oats
- 1 medium free-range egg, beaten
- 80ml whole milk
For the spiced vanilla cream
- 300ml double cream
- 2 cinnamon sticks
- 2 cloves
- ½ tsp vanilla extract
For the chocolate custard
- 150ml whole milk
- 150ml double cream
- 2 medium free-range egg yolks
- 1½ tbsp golden caster sugar
- 1½ tbsp cocoa powder
- ½ tsp cornflour
- 2 stem ginger balls
Specialist kit - 20cm square cake tin
Method
- To make the spiced vanilla cream, heat the double cream in a pan with the whole spices and vanilla. As soon as it begins to simmer, remove from the heat, cover, then leave to infuse for at least two hours (ideally overnight in the fridge). Strain before using.
- Heat the oven to 150°C fan/gas 3½. Grease the cake tin with butter and line with baking paper. Put the 100g butter, treacle, golden syrup and muscovado sugar in a saucepan over a low heat, stir until melted, then remove from the heat and leave to cool.
- Put the flour, cocoa powder, ground spices, bicarbonate of soda and oats in a large bowl and stir to combine. Make a well in the centre, then stir in the slightly cooled treacle mixture, followed by the egg, then the milk (bit by bit to avoid lumps). Pour the mixture into the prepared tin, then bake for about 50 minutes until a knife or skewer pushed into the centre comes out clean.
- To make the chocolate custard, heat the milk and cream together until almost boiling. Whisk the egg yolks in a bowl with the sugar, cocoa and cornflour, then pour a little of the hot milk and cream over the top. Whisk well, then pour in the rest of the cream mixture and whisk again to combine. Return to a clean pan and cook over a low-medium heat, stirring constantly, until it forms a custard that thickly coats the back of a wooden spoon. Roughly chop the stem ginger and stir into the custard.
- To serve, cut the parkin into 9 squares. Serve with the sauces on the side, or pile them up and pour both the custard and the cream over the top, allowing them to marble together as they hit the cake.
- Recipe from February 2024 Issue
Nutrition
- Calories
- 650kcals
- Fat
- 41g (25g saturated)
- Protein
- 7.6g
- Carbohydrates
- 60g (40g sugars)
- Fibre
- 3.2g
- Salt
- 0.5g
delicious. tips
The cake can be made 1-2 days ahead – in fact, parkin is traditionally eaten a day or two after baking to allow the flavours to meld and the texture to get truly sticky.
To create that wonderful marbled effect, make sure your custard is warm and your cream is cold. Put them in individual jugs, then carefully pour them over the parkin at the same time and they’ll naturally marble together.
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