MacArthur Parkin

The perfect recipe for the weather we've been having lately: the cake you can leave out in the rain*

Ideal for round-the-world yachtspeople; goes lovely with a mug of tea.

Ingredients

 4 oz butter
4 oz Muscovado sugar
2 eggs
10 oz molasses
8 oz flour
1 tsp ginger
4 oz preserved ginger
2 tbsp milk
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda

Beat the sugar with the butter, mix in the eggs and treacle, sift in the flour and ginger and add the preserved ginger; warm the milk, add the bicarb to it and stir into the mixture.

Pour the mix into a lined, greased 7" cake tin, and bake at mark 3, 160° for 1½ hours. Remove from the oven, and leave it out in the rain for 24 hours, or as long as you feel like.

Print this, and present it to anyone who expresses doubt as to their ability to get the recipe.



*especially if you put it in a Tupperware box.
 

soda bread

 I made soda bread yesterday. It turned out quite well.

• 1lb flour (I used 4 oz Allinsons seed and grain mix, and 12 oz plain strong Canadian flour)
• 1/2 pint buttermilk (cultured buttermilk from Waitrose: très cultured, dollink)
• 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 2 tsp salt
• warm water

Preheat oven to 220C.

Add the bicarb and salt to the flour, then mix in the buttermilk, adding the warm water towards the end to help everything to bind, then give it a quick pummelling, make it into a ball, and put it onto a tray or, as I did, into a cast iron casserole that I'd oiled and dusted heavily with maize flour.

Bake at 220C for 30 mins, then turn it down to 200C and remove the pot lid for 15 mins to brown the crust.

Keeping the lid on keeps the cooking loaf in a moist atmosphere and helps it grow.

Turn it out onto a rack or a board, and cover with a tea towel as it cools, or leave off if you prefer it v crusty