SweetloreEncyclopedia of World Sweets (534）
Eccles Cake
Eccles cake
A small currant-filled parcel, glimpsed through three slits
Pies ／ United Kingdom・England
The Eccles cake is a sweet named after Eccles, a town in the northwest of the UK, made by wrapping a fruit filling in thin pastry and baking it. Although its name says “cake,” its casing is a pastry that bakes into layers. Three slits open on its flat top, and inside is a filling made with currants and citrus peel. The filling is made so that the pieces of fruit stay whole, and it is wrapped in pastry prepared separately. The filling is cooled before wrapping.
Making a Filling That Keeps the Fruit Whole
Small currants are combined with butter, sugar, chopped candied citrus peel, and other ingredients. How nutmeg, cinnamon, allspice, and other spices are used varies from recipe to recipe. Rather than cooking the fruit down like jam, the filling is brought together into a state that is easy to wrap while keeping the shape and chew of each piece of fruit.
In one method, butter and sugar are warmed, orange zest and spices are added, and then the fruit is heated through; in another, melted butter is taken off the heat and mixed with the fruit. Some recipes combine golden raisins with the currants. In either case, the filling is cooled before wrapping to keep the fat in the pastry from being softened by a warm filling.
Wrapping the Fruit in Laminated Pastry and Flattening It
For the casing, puff pastry or rough puff, which is folded with lumps of fat left in the flour, is used. One example of rough puff brings together flour and the same amount of butter with cold water, then repeats chilling and folding. By scattering the fat between the layers instead of working it completely into the flour, it creates a texture in which thin layers flake apart when baked.
The pastry can be cut into circles, or into squares, for wrapping. The filling is placed in the center and the edges are gathered together; pressing it with the gathered seam facing down gives a flat shape with few seams on top. The thick, puffed shape it has after wrapping is pressed out and evened into a flat form so that the pastry and filling are of uniform thickness.
Three Slits to Let Out Steam, and Sugar on Top
The surface is brushed with milk or egg white, sprinkled with sugar, and cut with three parallel slits. The slits act as steam vents and open as the pastry puffs. The sugar on top adds a fine crunch to the pastry layers.
An Eccles cake photographed in a café. The slits and sugar on its flat pastry are visible. Photo: Sean Whitton ( User:Xyrael ), 2006-05-31, location unknown. Original image / CC BY-SA 3.0. Downscaled version from the source; no further processing.
How It Differs from the Chorley Cake, Wrapped in Shortcrust
The Chorley cake, also from Lancashire, likewise wraps small dried grapes in a round casing, but its casing is shortcrust, made by rubbing fat into flour. Whereas the Eccles cake has laminated layers that flake apart, the Chorley cake is characterized by a crumbly casing and restrained sweetness. Both are also eaten with Lancashire cheese. Both wrap fruit in pastry, but because the casings are made differently, their textures differ as well.
With Tea, or with Local Cheese
Besides eating it with tea, there is a custom of serving it with a chunk of crumbly cow’s-milk cheese from Lancashire, the local county. The warm pastry and sweet fruit are eaten together with the milky flavor and saltiness of the cheese. This pairing also appears in a recipe (the ingredient proportions and method) by Sean Wilson.
The chef Marcus Wareing’s method adds a contrast in temperature to the pairing of sweet and savory. Cheddar is baked, cooled, and mixed into vanilla ice cream, which is served with a warm Eccles cake. Compared with serving Lancashire cheese as it is, both the type of cheese and the temperature of the accompaniment differ.
Shops on Both Sides of the Street Claim to Be “Genuine”
In Eccles, which historically belonged to Lancashire, the local history society records that James Birch began making the cakes opposite the church in 1796. When he moved to a larger shop across the road in 1810, his former employee James Bradburn took over the original shop and rebuilt it in 1835. As a result, shops each claiming to be the long-established original stood on both sides of the road.
The 1867 book “Lancashire Folk-lore” also records that one shop called itself “the genuine one, moved from across the way” and the other “the genuine one, not moved,” and that confused visitors bought from both shops. The same book describes it as a sweet eaten all year round rather than only on particular feast days, suggesting that it had already become established as the town’s specialty by the 19th century.
Glossary
- Currants
- Small dried grapes used in baking. Not the same as the fruit of the currant bush.
- Rough puff
- A simplified laminated pastry in which lumps of fat are mixed into flour and then folded to create layers.
- Marcus Wareing
- A British chef. He has published a recipe that serves Eccles cakes with Cheddar ice cream.
- Lancashire cheese
- A cow’s-milk cheese from Lancashire in the northwest of the UK. Here, a chunk is served alongside to go with the sweetness of the fruit in the pastry.
- Chorley cake
- A closely related sweet from Lancashire. Currants are wrapped in a casing made by rubbing fat into flour without folding.
- Sean Wilson
- Author of the British cookbook “The Great Northern Cookbook.” He gives a recipe served with Lancashire cheese.
- Cheddar
- A hard cow’s-milk cheese that originated in the UK.
- James Birch
- A craftsman who sold cakes in Eccles in the late 18th century and moved his shop in 1810.
- James Bradburn
- Birch’s former employee. He took over the original shop and competed with Birch over which shop had the true pedigree.
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