Dr Mobeus
Eccles Cakes
Eccles cakes are one of the great Lancashire bakes and proof that the oldest recipes are often the cheapest. A little butter, flour, a handful of currants and some brown sugar turn into eight sticky, flaky little parcels that were sold on the streets of Manchester and Salford long before anyone put them in a bakery window. The pastry is a quick home version of flaky pastry, rolled and folded a few times to build up layers, and it takes all of ten minutes of actual work. The filling bakes into a dense, spicy currant paste that stays chewy in the middle while the outside goes crisp and caramelised. At around 17p a cake they beat anything in the pastry aisle.
Eccles Cakes
Ingredients
Method
- Rub the cold butter into the flour and salt until it looks like coarse breadcrumbs, then stir in enough cold water to bring it together into a firm dough. Wrap and chill for 20 minutes.
- Mix the currants, brown sugar, softened butter and mixed spice into a rough paste. A little grated lemon zest is traditional if you have one.
- Roll the pastry out on a floured surface to the thickness of a pound coin. Fold it in thirds like a letter, turn it 90 degrees, roll again, and repeat once more. This layering gives the cakes their flaky sides. Roll out finally to about 3 mm thick.
- Cut 8 rounds with a 10 cm cutter or use a small saucer as a template. Put a heaped teaspoon of the currant filling in the middle of each, brush the edges with milk, then gather the pastry up and pinch it firmly over the top to seal in the fruit.
- Turn them seam side down and flatten gently with the rolling pin until the fruit just starts to show through. Brush with milk, scatter over the demerara sugar and make 3 small slashes across the top of each.
- Bake at 200C (180C fan) for 15 to 18 minutes on a lined tray until deeply golden and the sugar is caramelised. Rest on the tray for 5 minutes before lifting, the filling stays molten hot.
Tips and Variations
A grating of lemon zest in the filling is the traditional touch, and a pinch of ground ginger works in place of mixed spice. The raw cakes freeze well: open freeze on a tray then bag them, and bake from frozen with a few extra minutes. Eat on the day for the best crunch, or refresh them for 5 minutes in a hot oven the next day.
