Is there any difference between the two when sold as a biscuit, usually in the shape of a person (I'm thinking ginger bread men) or animal etc? I never used to see Parkin before I moved to Sheffield and now see the cakes everywhere. Then today I saw a Parkin Pig which would have definitely have been called a Ginger bread pig back in Hull where I come from!

I also vaguely remember something called Ginger Cake (or similar) which tasted just like Parkin, not as sure about the name of that one though.

So is this a regional difference, seasonal and are they both the same thing?? :)

we had friends up from Sussex this weekend and they thought parkin was something done in car parks!
It was certainly an experience for them when they tasted it and funnily enough one of them said it was gingerbread!

Perhaps there is a similarity in taste but I can eat parking I can't eat gingerbread.

Moon

I think there is definitly a difference. Main one I can think of is the consistency.

Ok i'll admit it, I bought a Parkin Pig! Out of curiosity of course, it was the same colour as ginger bread and tasted exactly the same as the last Ginger bread man I ate! Also had the same consitency sort of like a gluey digestive biscuit (bad comparisson I know) Maybe this was just a one off as Parkin Pig sounds better than Gingerbread pig and they know they taste similar.

Does parkin come in two forms? One a brown cake type thing and the other, how I am describing, much lighter in colour and more like a biscuit?

Sticky treacle parkin is one of my wifes best recipes, definately a cake! interesting though about regional differences, the thing I miss most about moving to Scarborough is being unable to get proper Sheffield fishcakes, ie;- two thick slices of potato with fish between, then cooked in batter. It seems to be a uniquely Sheffield product, ask for a fish cake anywhere else, and you get spud and fish minced together with a batter coating, ugh!!!

Originally posted by little malc
Sticky treacle parkin is one of my wifes best recipes, definately a cake! interesting though about regional differences, the thing I miss most about moving to Scarborough is being unable to get proper Sheffield fishcakes, ie;- two thick slices of potato with fish between, then cooked in batter. It seems to be a uniquely Sheffield product, ask for a fish cake anywhere else, and you get spud and fish minced together with a batter coating, ugh!!!

Totally with you on this one! Though as far afield as Huddersfield, if you ask for a fishcake that's what you get - slices of potato with fish inbetween. It's how it should be! :)

I was under the impression that parkin had a more almondy flavour than ginger cake?

Parkin is like a brown sponge cake kind of thing that tastes of black tracle isn't it ?

Fishcake butties are my favourite fast food.

Parkin has oatmeal in it - gingerbread doesn't!

Originally posted by MrHelicopter
Parkin has oatmeal in it - gingerbread doesn't!
I was about to say the same thing. One is made with flour the other with oatmeal.

My grandmother who died at the age of 94, and worked as a maid for 'the gentry' in Sheffield for the whole of her life, told me that the proper name for parkin was 'fart cake'.

Was she having me on? If it was a joke, it was the only one she ever told me.