As useless as I am in cold weather (I’ve been known to randomly burst into tears when waiting for buses because I feel like my bones are freezing through), and although it means darker nights and less time to run in daylight, this time of year has to be one of my favourites.
Having been in education almost solidly since the age of 4, September means a fresh start, even moreso than January. Soon afterwards it’s my birthday, closely followed by Halloween. One of the things that I most adore about Halloween is the food associated with it, and the opportunities that it presents for baking (pumpkin pie, pumpkin cupcakes, pumpkin spice cake, pumpkin everything!).
After Halloween, for many people the next event to look forward to is Christmas. However, I am lucky enough to live in England (one of the few times that I would consider myself fortunate for this), and we have an equally exciting night to look forward to the week after…
Remember, remember the Fifth of November,
the Gunpowder Treason and Plot,
I see no reason why Gunpowder Treason should ever be forgot.
Guy Fawkes, t’was his intent to blow up King and Parliament.
Three score barrels were laid below to prove old England’s overthrow;
By God’s mercy he was catch’d with a dark lantern and lighted match.
Holloa boys, holloa boys, let the bells ring.
Holloa boys, holloa boys, God save the King!
Hip hip hoorah!
…it’s Bonfire Night!
Okay, so as a Catholic it’s possibly a little odd to partake in a tradition that celebrates the failure of a plot to overthrow the monarch and replace him with a Catholic one, and the subsequent execution of the men involved… but I just can’t help but love this British tradition and all the celebrations associated with it – fireworks, bonfires, sparklers, toffee apples… and the little known culinary delight that is the parkin pig.
Now, I had always figured that parkin pigs were enjoyed everywhere. It wasn’t until I spoke to people from other parts of the country that I learned not only are they virtually unheard of in the south of England, they’re actually not eaten in most parts of the north either! They’re a Yorkshire tradition, and one that I have taken delight in nearly every year since I was little. My mum would always bake parkin pigs on Bonfire Night, and we would eat them while we held sparklers in the garden and watched my dad wrestle with fireworks on the lawn.
Since my siblings and I flew the nest, she has stopped making them and so last year, in an attempt to revive the tradition, I made some myself. Being a less experienced baker at that point, I left them in the oven too long and they came out crunchy and slightly burnt. What’s more, my mum couldn’t find her pig cutter and I couldn’t find one in any stores, so I sort of freestyled it and drew the pig shapes into the dough.
The picture speaks for itself.
This year, I was determined to improve on last year’s attempts. I somehow managed to forget to purchase a pig cutter again but undeterred, I crafted my own stencil from a picture I downloaded from Google and the front cover of the phonebook…
Figuring that the recipe I used last year would have been fine had I not overcooked the pigs, I opted to use it again this time (this was not a wise decision).
It all started well. I mixed together the sugar, margarine and flour.
You may notice the box of molasses in the above picture. Or, more precisely, molasses sugar. When a recipe calls for molasses, and you only have molasses sugar, you might be forgiven for thinking that ‘it’ll do’.
Well, I’m here to tell you: it won’t. With hindsight I should have known this, but I will blame my mistake on the fact that I was in a rush to bake the pigs before we headed out to a bonfire, so I wasn’t thinking properly.
The dough turned out fine. It was just sticky enough to handle being rolled out on a floured surface. I carefully cut some pigs out of the dough, before using the rest to make butterflies and gingerbread men.
With the cookies ready to bake, I popped them into the oven for fifteen minutes – the amount of time suggested in the recipe. And that brings us onto mistake number two – gingerbread is easy to overcook!
Tip: Regardless of what the recipe says, stand by the oven WATCHING the gingerbread cooking, and check it every few minutes! If it isn’t still soft when you bring it out of the oven, then it’s been in too long.
So out came my impressively pig-shaped, if slightly burnt, parkin pigs (aesthetically, a definite improvement on last year).
I also had a little collection of gingerbread men, and some butterflies. I left the cookies out to cool, and then packed them up and rushed over to see my parents before heading out to a bonfire three doors down.
Upon arriving, I made a cup of tea and sat down to munch – in true,Yorkshire, bonfire night tradition – on a parkin pig.
It was not a pleasant experience. By now, the cookies had hardened even more, the gingerbread flavour was barely there and they were almost salty. If that wasn’t enough to convince me that they had been a epic failure, I spotted a batch that my dad had bought from the bakery that morning and smelled them. I was immediately transported back to childhood as the sweet, spicy smell tickled my nose. I picked up one of my pigs, and I smelled it. I offered it to my mum, and she smelled it.
Pulling a face, she informed me with brutal, maternal honesty, that it smelled ‘like sweat’.
Tossing the rest of the pigs in the bin, we headed out to watch the fireworks.
The parkin pig saga is not over, though.
Even more determined, I sought a new recipe, and sent Matt to buy the crucial missing ingredient.
Although it produced a radically different dough, I could tell right away that this batch was going to turn out better.
Armed with my new gingerbread baking wisdom, I ignored the baking time suggested by the recipe and erred on the side of caution, hanging around in the kitchen and checking on them every three minutes.
When they were still soft – so soft it almost felt wrong to bring them out – I slid them carefully onto the cooling rack and hoped they’d turn out to be the right consistency after cooling.
Apart from the colour, which is a little too brown for my liking, they turned out perfectly. Soft, chewy, and properly gingerbready. Yes, I just made up a word.
So, after hours of toiling in the kitchen and a day late, I eventually got to indulge in my favourite bonfire night tradition. Having halved the recipe, I managed four parkin pigs, a gingerbread man, a butterfly and a cookie with the leftovers. Seeing as the recipe included icing, I decided to make that too. I didn’t want to overdo it, because traditional parkin pigs are plain. It called for vegan cream cheese though, which I just happened to have in. So I made it – it was deliciously lemony – and used it sparingly. I also added some white glitter to the butterfly and the cookies, but they made it into my tummy way before the camera got to them.
You may be confused at this point by the use of the word ‘parkin’ to describe gingerbread (in fact, if you’re not from England you may be confused by the work ‘parkin’ at all, so here is a little help from our good friend Wikipedia). Parkin is actually a kind of cake, and while the ingredients in parkin pigs are similar, the two are essentially different. Matt and I had a debate about this a while ago, and I rang my mum to clear it up – she was able to confirm that parkin pigs are not made out of parkin. Just to confuse you even more.
But parkin is basically an English, specifically Yorkshire, form of gingerbread. And in the same way that gingerbread cake and gingerbread cookies are different, so too are parkin cake and parkin pigs.
Before I make this any more complicated, I’m going to share the recipe that I used in case you too want to share in this cosy Yorkshire tradition.
I have a feeling the parkin pig saga is still not over, however. Having read up on the tradition (and learned that parkin pigs have actually been granted special status that prevents anyone outside Yorkshire selling them!), I have a feeling that not just any old gingerbread recipe will do. I think I might revisit this one and see if I can improve them. And maybe make some real parkin too!
Parkin Pigs
(Taken from Vegalicious)
Ingredients:
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar (white)
2 teaspoons ground ginger
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 teaspoon allspice
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 egg substitute, prepared
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1/4 cup black treacle*
1 tablespoon vegan margarine, melted
2 cups flour
A handful of currants
Method:
1. Mix the spices together in a small bowl – ginger, cinnamon, allspice – and the salt and baking soda.
2. In a separate, large bowl, whisk together the egg substitute, brown sugar, white sugar, treacle, vegetable oil and vegan margarine.
3. Add the spice mixture to the liquid mixture.
4. Gradually stir in the flour mix to form a sticky dough.
5. Divide the dough in 2 large balls and slightly flatten into a large disc. Wrap each disc in clingfilm and place in the refrigerator to chill for at least an hour and a half.
6. After the dough has chilled, preheat the oven to 350 F/177 C.
7. Lightly flour a work space and roll out 1 piece of dough to a thickness of 1/4 inch (6 mm).
8. Using either a pig cutter or a stencil, cut out your pigs. Place a currant in each one, for the eye.
9. Place the cookies on a cookie sheet and bake for 10-12 minutes, checking on the cookies every 3 minutes to ensure they don’t overbake. If after 12 minutes the edges haven’t begun to harden at all, return them to the oven and check on them at one minute intervals.
10. Remove the cookies from the oven. Allow to cool on the cookie sheet for 2 minutes, then carefully remove from the cookie sheet with a spatula and place on wire rack to cool. They will still be soft at this point, so you need to transfer them gently.
*One thing to note: the treacle flavour was fairly strong, and although I possibly got a little overenthusiastic and put too much in, next time I’d be tempted to substitute half for golden syrup.
running towards recovery 