Bluebottle: What time is it Eccles?
Eccles: Err, just a minute. I've got it written down here on a piece of paper. A nice man wrote the time down for me this morning.

Here is my tweaked Eccles cake recipe. It may require additional tweaking to get right - certainly, I intend to keep fiddling. * indicates things that I need to fiddle with.

makes 4 biiigg Eccles cakes

1/2 oz butter
1 oz light muscovado sugar (I like Billington's)
2 oz mixed dried fruit (currants, mostly but I use a dry mincemeat mix)
1/4 tsp allspice*

1 x pack puff pastry
for a glaze
1 egg white, lightly beaten
a pinch of caster sugar

Melt the butter and sugar together, add the fruit and spices and mix well. Set aside to cool.

Heat the oven to 220C (gas mark 7).

Roll out the puff pastry till it is 1/8th inch or so, maybe less*. Cut out four large circles - I used a bowl rim to mark them, then my little pastry knife to cut them out. You could make 8 or so smaller cakes, obviously.

Put a dollop of the fruit mix in the middle of each circle. Brush the edges of the circle with a little of the egg white and fold them over. I pinch two opposing sides together, then fold the other edges in so that I've used overlapping six folds. Er...I may need to take a photo of that... Make sure the edges of the folds are binding together.

Flip the cakes over so the folds are underneath and put them on a greased (or greaseproof papered) baking tray. Pat them down a little so that the filling has spread. It should feel solid. Cut three slashes into the top. Glaze with the egg white and sprinkle with the caster sugar. Bake for 18-20 minutes until golden and yummy.

The recipe this was tweaked from also called for 1/4 tsp freshly grated nutmeg.

Labels: cooking, recipes