Today is Guy Fawkes Day so I decided to make a parkin and have a fire in the fire pit tonight. It kept me occupied and away from Twitter for part of the day.
The recipe I chose from the Great British Bake Off was overly complicated (well, duh, Dona) and I had to think out of the box for some of the ingredients. I made my own golden syrup (OMG is that good — Delight!), ground rolled oats to make what the British call oatmeal (we call rolled oats — and steel cut oats — oatmeal in the States), and finally I had to cobble together “mixed spice” but I didn’t have any mace.
The parkin turned out well, but it should have been made a week ago to let the flavors mingle according to the recipe. Looking forward to seeing what it tastes like in a week. [edited November 13 — the parkin does not taste much different — maybe a little drier.]
After dinner we went out back and Dean lit a small fire in the firepit. We ate our parkin and had a tiny drop of whiskey. It was delightful.
Also, the trumpet still has not won.
When I'm Sixty-four 
You always have such interesting activities on the go. I have never heard of a parkin, and even were I to make one, I doubt it would occur to me that I could partake in parkin and a tipple of whiskey around a fire in my backyard.
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Ooooo, lovely.
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I think I might have to try a parkin, given that I have golden syrup AND mixed spice on hand. And I never knew that what you call oatmeal is what we call rolled oats. That will help me a lot reading US recipes.
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