I carry no phone An aspiring Luddite In a wired world. Mastodon Verification Link	Jeff Berry is an early adopter of the Internet and the Web, a late adopter of Twitter, and declines to adopt Facebook. With the death of Google+, he migrated to the Fediverse. He admins a medievalist Mastodon instance. He hates cell-phones.

There is a Yorkshire speciality called Parkin. It's a sort of gingerbread with oatmeal, treacle, and golden syrup. Someone was handing out samples of it at our local farm shop the other day. The following recipe is not for Parkin. Rather it's for a Parkin inspired gingerbread. I decided to make it in muffin tins, or rather muffin silicones, since I had them gathering dust under the counter. I also decided to top it with whiskey sauce, since that way I can combine food, booze, and fire into one tidy little inflammable package.

The recipe that follows makes four ginger muffins. It ought to scale up, if you want to make more. If you'd rather make it as a big cake, that should work, too, just make sure that you don't spread it too thinly or it may overcook or burn.

• Gingerbread
  • 50 gm butter (about 3 1/2 Tbs)
  • 100 gm brown sugar (about 1/2 cup packed not too firmly)
  • 2 Tbs milk
  • 1 egg, beaten
  • 2 tsp ground ginger
  • 1/2 tsp ground coriander seed
  • 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
  • (optional) 1 Tbs treacle or molasses
  • 1/2 cup oats
  • 1/2 cup flour
• Whiskey Sauce
  • a Tbs or so butter
  • about 2 Tbs of sugar
  • 2 or 3 Tbs of whiskey, don't use your best single malt

The whiskey sauce is also simple, although significantly more dangerous. Make this in a pan that has a lid, and keep the lid handy - if the flames get too high, put the lid on the pan. Otherwise you might melt the plastic grill on the exhaust fan. Or so I've heard. In any case ...

Melt the butter and sugar together. If you'd like, you can add some cream to thicken it a bit, please yourself. If you want to add spices, go ahead; I sometimes do. Add the whiskey and mix it all up. When it's warmed, light it - carefully. There are many ways to light your sauce; pick the safest. A long match works, or a cooking torch like you'd use to caramelize the tops of cakes or pies. Some people like to light a spoonful of booze and use that, but that's never worked for me, and is prone to spillage. If it's a gas stove, you can tilt the pan close to the flame until it ignites, but be careful! If you tilt it too far, your stove will became a mass of flaming alcohol and sugar, and no one wants that. You don't even need to light it, if you don't want to. If you did, though, let it burn until it burns out. If you'd like, you can gently swirl it or stir it, but this will vastly increase the size of the flames. I mean, look at the pictures over to the right!

Seriously, this is fire. If you're going to flame it, be careful. That's why, you'll note, I don't even suggest trying to flame it tableside.

When the sauce is no longer on fire, pour it over the gingerbread and serve. This gingerbread is a touch dry, so if you don't want to do the whiskey sauce, melt a little butter on it, or add some cream, whipped or otherwise.