Bolton (or Eccles) Cakes

As my next bake was to take 'up north' to Bolton for my other half and his co-workers, I thought Eccles Cakes would be appropriate. Although not actually a cake, more of a pastry, they have the word 'cake' in the title, so they are surely entitled to be in the book. They're found on page 112 of Delia's Cakes. I was a big fan of these growing up, often making the mistake of heating them in the microwave for too long and making the filling painfully hot on the tongue! They date from 1793, where they were first sold in (you guessed it!) Eccles in Lancashire.

The recipe is fairly straightforward (thankfully Delia does not require you to make your own puff pasty - you've seen the Bake-Off, you know what a faff that is!). The first part is making a sticky dried fruit mixture that smells just like mincemeat.

The second part I found a bit more challenging (mainly because I'm never good at following instructions to the letter). Delia asked me to roll out a rectangle 32cm x 40cm (which I estimated) and to cut it 5 squares by 4 squares so each one would measure 8cm x 8cm. Well, I ran my pizza cutter down and across a few times and ended up with 20 squares, but whether or not they were 8cm, or even vaguely similar to each other in size, is debatable. In retrospect, this may have led to my downfall.

After putting a heap of the mincemeat smelling mixture in the middle of each square, I then had to dampen the edges with water (this got a bit sticky!) then turn all the corners inwards and seal them together (harder than it sounds!). Then I was to flip it and shape it into a round, put it on a baking sheet, brush with egg white and sprinkle with sugar. I was feeling pretty confident when they went in the oven, and they did smell great. Although not a complete disaster, a lot of the juicy part of the inside did seep out of the bottom (clearly my seals were not sealed!) and they got pretty stuck to the baking sheet - it reminded me very much of when mince pies overflow and you end up prising them out of the tin with a knife.

But, the main thing was, they tasted fab. Looking back, I think I should have rolled the pastry a bit thinner and been a bit more careful about the sized of my squares and sealing them up at the bottom (so, I failed at every step basically!). Plus, personally, I would have preferred a higher ratio of filling to pastry, but maybe that's just me. The cast of The Family Way at Bolton Octagon Theatre all tasted one and I'm told everyone liked them (but they are actors, they could easily have been acting...).