Mrs Ritchie's Ginger Parkin

Mrs Ritchie's Ginger Parkin

From the kitchen of DJRITCHIE

Servings | 16
Estimated POINTS® value per serving | 3

8oz wholemeal self-raising flour

6 oz oats

3 tspn ground ginger

1 tspn salt 

4oz raisins

12 tblspn granulated sweetener (equivalent to 6oz sugar)

1 medium egg

2 tblspn skimmed milk

4oz stork margarine

4oz apple sauce 

10oz golden syrup

Place the sieved flour, oats, raisins, ginger, salt and granulated sweetener into a large mixing bowl and stir till evenly distributed. Put golden syrup, apple sauce and stork margarine in a heavy bottom saucepan and heat on a medium heat until dissolved. Pour the melted mixture over contents of the mixing bowl and stir thoroughly to ensure all oats are mixed in well. Beat the egg in a seperate dish before adding to the mixing bowl, then add the milk and mix thoroughly. Grease and line a deep 9 inch square cake tin or lasagne tin. Pour the mixture into the cake tin and spread out evenly. Place in the centre of the oven on a 170/gas mark 3 for 60 minutes or 50-55 mins at 160 in a fan oven. To test if the cake is ready push a clean knife into the cake, if it comes out clean then the cake is ready, if not bake for an extra 10 minutes before testing again. Once baked, turn the cake out onto a cooking rack, remove greaseproof paper carefully and allow to cool properly before turning onto a cutting board. Cut into quarters and then cut those quarters into quarters to create 16 evenly sized portions. Parkin is supposed to taste better after being stored for two days. My parkin rarely lasts longer than two days!!



A firm favourite with my lot! I first started baking it as a healthy alternative to chocolate bars in the kids' and hubby's lunches. It's very filling and satisfying. I feel the same after eating it as I used to gorging on half a pack of biscuits but without the guilt! This is based on a traditional wholemeal parkin recipe, replacing half the fat with apple sauce. Be cautious choosing baking fat and apple sauce. Supermarket value lines often have higher sugar and fat content. Apple sauce is great for replacing fat in cakes. The original recipe called for 8oz of syrup and 8oz of sugar. The syrup has slightly lower points than sugar so I replaced 2oz of the sugar with syrup and 6oz of sugar with sweetner. If you want to reduce the calories even further you might like to try less syrup and more sweetener. We like this ratio because no-one, not even my fussy husband, can taste the sweetener.