Kendal Mint Cake Kendal Mint Cake Kendal Mint Cake is a glucose-based confection flavoured with peppermint. It originates from Kendal in Cumbria, England. Kendal Mint Cake is popular among climbers and mountaineers, especially those from the United Kingdom, as a source of energy. Kendal Mint Cake is based on a traditional recipe known as "mint cake", "peppermint tablet," and various other names. There are currently two companies that still produce Kendal Mint Cake. The origin of the cake is allegedly the result of a batch of glacier mint sweets that went wrong. In 1869 Joseph Wiper, who married into the Thompson family of
Parkin (cake) "tharf" or "theorf" meant unleavened, un-fermented, solid tough or sodden in Old English. John Wycliffe in his translation of the Bible in 1389 (Mark Ch.14.v. 1) calls unleavened bread a 'tharf loove' Parkin is virtually unknown south of the Humber. It is eaten in an area where oats were the staple grain for the poor, rather than wheat. It is closely related to tharf cake – an unsweetened cake cooked on a griddle rather than baked. The traditional time of the year for tharf cakes to be made was directly after the oat harvest in the first week in November.