I don't think these were the right oats

[carbonel]

My parkin has been in the oven for two and a half hours -- an extra half-hour. It's still sloshy rather than cake-ey. It's bubbling away in the oven, but it doesn't seem to be getting solid.

I'm debating between taking it out of the oven and seeing if it hardens up, and leaving it in another half-hour or so. At that point it has to come out of the oven, because I'm falling asleep. (I got up an hour early today so that Pat and I could go walking before her new Oriental rug arrived.)

I hate ruining expensive ingredients. I haven't had a total culinary failure in a long time, but this sure looks like it's shaping up to be one.

Edited to add: I just took it out of the oven, and it looks much the same. The problem seems to be that the oats didn't absorb any of the liquid. A poke with a toothpick to extract a couple oats shows that they're still solid and crunchy. Maybe something useful will happen overnight, as it cools. Maybe I had defective oats?