Guy Fawkes

To celebrate Guy Fawkes, we decided to make Yorkshire parkin and plot toffee, using a recipe from Caitie's great-great-grandmother. Caitie's great-grandfather said 'we always had parkin and plot toffee for Guy Fawkes. We'd make the toffee with Mum and wrap it up in little cones of grease proof paper and take it to the teacher in the morning. The toffee would make you chew for hours, stick your teeth together.'

We made the Yorkshire Parkin first. We had to convert the measurements to metric, but it was a very straight forward recipe. We combined 455g oatmeal, 225g flour, a teaspoon of ground ginger, 225g sugar and 200g butter, and Caitie 'rubbed' it together. Then we added 340g 'slightly warmed' treacle. The final addition was a teaspoon of baking soda dissolved in half a glass of milk.



Caitie's dad then showed her a trick for creating a smooth surface on the top. He wet his fingers and smoothed the top. Because his fingers were wet, they didn't get sticky with the cake mixture. :)



Then we baked it at 150 degrees Celsius for about an hour. We ended up having to take it out before it was cooked in the centre, because it was going to burn on the outside. Turns out we should have used a much shallower tin. We agreed the recipe was right, but on this occassion, the creation was a fail because the tin was too deep for it to cook properly. :(



Then we made plot toffee. SO easy. We combined 225g sugar, 28g butter, 2 tablespoons of treacle and 2 tablespoons of water in a saucepan, melted it and brought it to the boil for ten minutes.



We tested it's readiness by dropping a few drops in a glass of cold water, and Caitie pronounced it ready because it immediately went solid. So we poured it in to a pan to cool.



It isn't chewy, but it's still a success. You only need a small amount though, it's very sweet. :)

Anyway, we went to an awesome fireworks display, so we had a great Guy Fawkes. We hope you did too.