Following on from last weeks Sticky Ginger cake I found myself browsing again through Cherry Cake and Ginger Beer by Jane Brocket  drooling over all the tea time treats so carefully described in children’s reading books when I came across a well loved cake that I’d always wanted to try – Parkin! Having read so many children’s stories about the wonders of a tin of parkin being bought out to ward off the cold during bonfire night or enjoyed with pots of steaming tea after damp autumn or frosty winter walks I felt I knew this cake well, but as a child or adult had never tried it. I knew it was treacly and sticky and dark, so I was surprised to find it contained oatmeal.

Of course oatmeal is not that easy to find in a modern day supermarket, so I’ve had to substitute porridge oats in mine, I promise to try it again with the right ingredient next time, but after a scan through the internet I found other recipes that had done the same.

As with the Sticky Ginger Cake, one warms the sugars and butters together melting them, this cake requires one whole tin of black treacle, wow!  that’s going to put hairs on your chest, as my father would say, along with brown sugar and butter, interestingly no egg is in the recipe.And then we mix this sugary aromatic concoction into the dry ingredients along with milk. pop into a ready prepared tin and place in the oven for an hour.A quick scrape around the bowl for a little taste reveals a wonderful combination of treacle toffee and flapjack.

After an hour I tested the cake and thought it was just a little bit too damp, so gave it an extra ten minutes, your milage may vary.  It smelt glorious. As I am storing the cake for a couple of days before trying it I have decided to store it with the parchment intact to retain all its natural moistness and allow the flavours to really develop – that’s if we can wait that long. It is Tuesday now so I think it will be perfect for my birthday treat,  I must say it does look and smell very good.Double wrapped to play pass the parcel with on Thursday – I wonder who will be the lucky person!

Or should I say Aunt Fanny’s treacly sticky ginger cake from the lovely book Cherry Cake and Ginger Beer written by Jane Brocket. which is indeed a golden treasury of classic treats.  As an avid reader of Jane’s blog I bought this book in 2008 and dipped into it to read and believe I did make the cherry cake, which I think was delicious, its a long time ago and there the book has sat among my sewing books!  I discovered it again a few weeks ago and resolved to go through at least a few of the recipes this year to fit in with my new resolution to bake some home made goodness of the sweet variety at least once a week. I mooted the idea to hubby of a weekly cake bake and he was in complete agreement, rather liking the idea of a cut and come again cake with its roots based in old fashioned values accompanied by pots of tea and fresh air and exercise.Gathering together the vital ingredients of black treacle, golden syrup and spices I set to work. Firstly the dry ingredients of flour, spices, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda and just a touch of salt were mixed together.

Then the real fun began. The opening of the glorious  and iconic tins of Lyles black treacle and golden syrup.  Let’s just pause for a moment to enjoy their sultry complexions as their first gentle waft of liquid burnished sugars hits the olfactory receptors. I weigh the three different sugars and butter and gently heat until the butter yields and becomes liquid gold to meld with the deep flavours of the burnished sugars.  At this point one knows this cake will be kill or cure, its flavours already so deep that one will either love or hate its rich gingery stickiness. Then to mix it with the dry ingredients, along with the milk and egg.

And hour in the oven later, you have this, which I left to cool in the tin for ten minutes or so before turning out. This has been wrapped in grease proof paper to let it meld all those flavours together for a day or two to turn into that sticky, rich ginger cake which is at its very best when taken with a steaming pot of freshly brewed tea, a good book and a woolly blanket to snuggle down into after an afternoon in the countryside.

She waits, patiently, her hero arrives.  It is the first time he has seen her today, he kisses her passionately and shows off his catch by performing a fly around, I think he loves her very much. He lands for the second time and gives her his prize and then he is off into the night, hunting again for his one true love.

Have you heard of flash mobs?  I’ve always wanted to be caught in the middle of one of them,  I think starlings performing their murmurations are the bird equivalent, they certainly seem to look like they are having fun. This barn owl was startled to be caught in the middle of it all, the expression it pulled on its face was most amusing. My two favourite things together, starling murmurations and a barn owl, I don’t think I will ever get that mix again!

Barn Owls, flying late at night in search of food for their growing young.
Silent in flight and eerily beautiful, a memory to last forever. 

I heard a few tweets and looked up to find these beautiful baby Blue Tit’s fledge.  They look far too young compared to their parents and in just a moment they were all gone deep into the lush  vegetation of the bushes. It was so nice to see – apologies about the photography. 

Because I can’t choose which picture to put up or write clever stories about bee’s apart from the last three pics show the same bee heavily laden with pollen, here are a few of the pics I took, just the ones I really like – the black and white one is a miner bee, I know that one, Dad used to say that he had just been down the pit, that’s why he was black and white. And just as an aside, I never knew that their wings got so bashed about. 

It is good to see that the Terns are coming to terms with their loss and the male is starting to work at repairing with his female. He shows his love by bringing her dinner, although she hadn’t taken the fish when I was watching, but he’s a clever boy and it has worked before. I hope they nest somewhere else though, although that doesn’t look likely. It would be lovely to see baby terns about the place.

Some things are just too cute for words, A mother Little Grebe patiently feeding her young. When like all children, they just want to play by blowing bubbles in the water. The child equivalent of playing with your peas.