UKH

As I've never really been a fan of mince pies, and since we're doing the family Christmas dinner this year and what with me being a northern chap, I thought I'd make Eccles cakes instead.  I mean, Eccles cakes.  How hard can it be?

Famous last words, of course.  My first thought of soaking the currants in rum produced a delicious filling, but one that was too liquid to seal easily.  The recipe I was using (Delia, obviously) recommended using flaky pastry but since I could find that in shops and making it sounded like a right faff, I used shop-bought puff pastry instead.  That was a pain to work with, so I then tried shortcrust pastry which was a lot easier to work with but this time the filling (no rum, so no leakage) had started to re-crystallise the sugar before I'd finished filling things.

So, UKC bakers, Eccles cakes.  Is flaky pastry worth the extra effort or do I just throw a bit more sugar and some seasonal edible glitter on top of egg-washed shortcrust pastry and be done with it?  Anyone got any Eccles cakes tips?  Or am I sailing alone in a world full of seasonal northerness and no mince pies this Christmas?

T.

Don't know anything about making them, but I do know they are my Uncle's favourite thing to eat.

I would have thought using shortcrust would make it more of a Chorley cake.

Wikipedia says that Chorley cakes are known as Fly Pie but this to me is made in a flat tin in a slab covered with a layer of icing

How long did you leave the fruit to soak?  You need to leave it to soak the liquid up, so the fruit is plump and it shouldn't be liquidy.  

Anyway, not at all Northern, and a bit of a different idea, how about frozen filo pastry? 

Quite easy and as long as you use loads of butter it comes out crispy. 

Looking at delias recipe I think your filling being wet was the issue. 

Oh, too much rum was definitely the issue first time.  The fruit had been soaking long enough - about 36 hours - but I'd just put too much rum in.  Delia's recipe advises making very small cakes, which I'm not a fan off; more medium-sized seems right to me, and they're easier for this fumble-fingered person to assemble. 

A Chorley cake, from recollection, is bigger than an Eccles cake, may use shortcrust and doesn't have sugar sprinkled on top.  Perhaps the ones I'm making, with elements of both, could be named after somewhere in between.  Anglezarke cake, anyone?

Using filo is a nice idea, perhaps one for another time; use honey and make something akin to a Turkish Eccles cake, baklava with buttery currants.

T.

Surely, after soaking, one should drain off the liquid and drink it...

I went to 6th form in Eccles