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My Nana, from Burnley made eccles cakes that were divine. Does anyone have an old recipe?

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The hawk flys round and round, the sky is so blue. I think I can hear the old bell ringing like I rang it to call them home ... Oh I was young then, and I walked in my body like a Queen

This Sad Cake sounds much like the Eccles Cake that was about the only thing my grandmother would let me help with in the kitchen. We have them at our little bakery in Amble, and they look a tad more exotic than my grandmother's did 50+ years ago, but she'd have been doing what David mentions ... using up the scraps of pastry.

Here's the Eccles Cake ............

Preparation time: 20 minutes
Cooking time: 15 minutes
Pre-heat oven to 220°C

Ingredients:

500g flaky pastry
25g melted butter
Nutmeg
50g candied peel
100g sugar
200g currants
Method:

In a medium saucepan, combine the sugar and butter and cook over a medium heat until melted
Off the heat, add currants, candied peel, nutmeg and allspice
On a lightly-floured surface, roll the pastry thinly and cut into rounds of about 0.5cm thickness and 10cm diameter
Place a small spoonful of filling onto centre of each pastry circle
Dampen the edges of the pastry and draw the edges together over the fruit and pinch to seal
Turn over, then press gently with a rolling pin to flatten the cakes
Flatten and snip a V in the top with scissors. Place on a baking tray
Brush with water and sprinkle with a little extra sugar
Bake in a hot oven for 20 minutes (220°C) or until lightly browned round the edges
Place on a wire rack and allow to cool.
Try not to eat them all at once!


This was posted (by Ross I think) in one of the other topics when we were discussing Sad cakes, Chorley cakes and eccles cakes not long ago.

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Mel

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Old receipe from my Grans book for Eccles cakes:

12ozs of rough puff pastry, using;
6ozs of fat to 12ozs of plain flour.
Filling 1oz of margarine or butter.
1oz of mixed peel.
4ozs of currents.
1oz of demerara sugar.
level teaspoon of mixed spices.

Melt margarine or butter and mix with the other ingredients.
Roll out pastry to 1/8th of an inch thickness, cut into 4inch rounds
and put a heaped teaspoon of filling on each round, damp the edges
and draw up to enclose the filling, turn over to the smooth side and
flatten slightly, make three cuts across, place on a baking sheet, brush
with milk and dredge with castor suger.
Bake near top of oven 445deg F for 15 mins.

445deg F is equivalant to Celsius 230 or Gas Mark 8

Yummy.
Stephanie.

Thankyou for the recipes, I will have to try them.
My Grandma used to make sad cakes, often dribbling ash on them from the cigarette dangling at the corner of her mouth. 'Grandma...' I'd squeal '...you dropped ash in'
'Oops-a-daisy' she'd say and roll a bit harder so it was all nicely absorbed!!!

All add to the flavour eh! bit if muck never hurt anybody


Stephanie.