Serves: Makes ~24 cakes
Cost: ~€3.50
Preparation time: ~40 minutes
Calories: ~170 calories per cake
[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #0B0B61;”]Greeting everyone! I hope you’ve all had a good weekend. As promised, it’s time to start a few British-inspired recipes. Now, I’m not entirely sure how many I’m going to post – there are many, many recipes, some a great deal more interesting than others so for the time being I’m just going to keep on going until I lose interest or want to start exploring other “culinary avenues”. I’ve made two things this weekend which I’ll be showing to you today and in the next post. Next weekend I’ll be making some more, so prepare yourself for an English extravaganza :).
Today I’ll be making Eccles Cakes, named after the English town of Eccles. They have a great many regional variants – some with flaky pastry, some with shortcrust, different shapes and sizes – at the heart of this cake is the good old British favourite – dried fruits. In this case its currants, or rather for me, raisins today. I couldn’t find currants anywhere so I figured that it couldn’t be such a bad thing to use raisins instead. They turned out really well – golden, flaky, stuffed full of sweet raisins, and for the price of a pack of 5 from a supermarket in England I ended up with more than 20 of them.
These are sweet, and far from healthy, but they’re also good – little pockets of goodness which go perfectly with a cup of tea or coffee at any time of day – just remember not to eat too many in one go 🙂
Have a nice week everyone, and I’ll be back on Friday with another English post – different end of the country, and something with a great history! 🙂
Eccles Cakes
[learn_more caption=”Video Recipe”]
Ingredients
For the filling:
- 200g Currants or Raisins
- 160g Demerara Sugar
- 100g Butter
- 1 tsp Cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp Nutmeg
- A little milk to glaze
For the pastry:
- 250g Plain Flour
- 200g Margarine or vegetable shortening
- 1 tsp Salt
or
- 450g Flaky or Shortcrust pastry
You’ll also need
- A Food Processor
Instructions
- Unless you’re using instant pastry, start off by placing the flour, salt and margarine / vegetable shortening into a Food Processor and pulsing until blended to a breadcrumb like consistency. Transfer to a large bowl and add some dashes of water, while stirring, until you have a smooth dough. Push into a ball and place into a bag or bowl. Cover and place into the refrigerator while you prepare the rest of the recipe.
- Melt the butter in a saucepan over the stove and then add in the raisins, cinnamon and nutmeg. Remove from the heat and mix well then set aside and allow to cool.
- Once the currants (or raisins) have cooled, remove the pastry from the refrigerator. Preheat your oven to 220 degrees Celsius and then roll the pastry out onto on a floured surface to a thickness of about 4mm and then cut into rounds using a cookie cutter with a diameter of about 10cm.
- Place a heaped teaspoonful of the currant/raisin mixture into the centre of the pastry rounds and then moisten one half of the pastry around the filling. Fold the rounds over and squeeze the edges together before placing them, fold downwards, into your hand and gently moulding and squeezing them into a thick disc shape, roughly 1 – 1.5cm thick. Brush with the milk and then stick each one a couple of times with a fork before placing onto a greased baking sheet.
- Place into the oven and bake for about 15 minutes, until they’re a rich golden brown. Remove and allow to cool on a baking tray for 30 minutes or so before digging in 🙂
Ah-a warm Eccles cake!-Brings back childhood memories of going for tea at Betty’s in Harrogate…
Hehe, they were definitely best when warm from the oven – a quick heat in the oven is the best of re-serving them I think, although they’re more than tasty when cold 🙂
This brings back some good memories. My aunty used to make these and she added some shredded cheddar cheese (I think) to the pastry. I used to just peel off the pastry and leave the filling for someone else … you know how kids are with spices but I love them now! And I do agree it’s good cold 🙂
Shredded cheddar cheese and currants? 😮 That’s a new one for me – I wonder what it’s like?! Like many pastry things it’s not so healthy, but I ate 3 while they were still on the tray after taking them out from the oven 😀
Hmm … can’t really answer for that one since I’ve always eaten the pastry without the filling then 🙂 But I do know it’s a good combination when used with apple pie … the cheddar crust, I mean.
The name eccles cake, I was thinking it actually was going to look like a cake with some frosting. This reminds me of a cookie here we have similar in the states but you know what…..I don’t even know what they call it! When I was a kid, I just ate cookies and didn’t question the name! lol
These kind of look like bite size poptarts the grocery stores have here in the states but your recipe is using the basic ingredients without the chemical food flavorings and/or preservatives!
Haha, it’s definitely not giving much away with the name, that’s true – still, it’s better than what they’re called somewhat more colloquially…. squashed fly cakes :p
Charles, I have always known British cuisine hides real treasures. These cakes look terrific. Flaky and crunchy outside and soft and sweet inside… Was the original recipe made with butter or beef fat? I often see beef drippings in British recipes. It sounds very intriguing.
Hi Sissi – I think the original might have been made with butter. Normally, I don’t like using margarine in cooking, but for pastry I really think that there’s nothing better than a decent vegetable shortening or margarine. Too much butter in the pastry really affects the flavour which, while good for some pies can be really disgusting for others.
Charles, although I cannot guess the margarine content in bigger, richer cakes, I don’t like it in thinner sweet pastry, when usually the butter is used, especially in the sweet version. Maybe it depends on the pastry, but while many people happily buy pastry sheets made with margarine (or another vegetable fats), I like only the butter version and the butter taste. (Although I also liked the taste of pork fat in my grandmother’s cakes 😉 )
I suppose it depends on what one likes. I love the butter taste in every single dish, sweet or savoury.
Usually, when I’m making pastry I will use 50% butter and 50% margarine or vegetable shortening – if you can use a vegetable shortening instead of margarine it’s better. To be honest, I’m not sure why I didn’t in this post – maybe because the raisins already have a lot of butter in them.
I agree – I love the taste of butter, and always, *always* use it when baking – cakes, cookies etc. I think my “epiphany” came when I made something once before – I won’t say what it is because it’s going to be next post actually 😀 – when eating it I realised that the pastry was much too rich. Such a strong butter taste has no place in such a dish and it didn’t taste good. Since then I’ve been experimenting with different pastries and I find, usually, that at most, 50% butter is the perfect balance.
Oh these are so cute! When I first read the title I thought it was a typo and supposed to be “eggless”. LOL. Eccles. Now I get it. You know we were looking for currants the other day too and had no luck. I even checked several stores. I ended up using preserves which worked out pretty well. The raisins look like they worked well here. I wonder if my kids would like them. They’re not big raisin fans. They do like currants though, so I may just have to keep my eyes open now. I’m looking forward to your British series!!
Thanks Kristy. It’s actually only recently that I discovered they actually have them in France at all… it seems they’re called “Corinthian raisins” here… who’d have thought?
Let me know if you give them a try!
It’s so great that you are doing English food, it has such a bad rap! This recipe reminds me of the Hungarian Donkey Ear cookies, except we fill them with jam. I like that a this is made in the processor, very easy indeed.
Hi Eva – it may still have a bad rap after I’m done with it… I’ll admit that I’m having some difficulties finding some “healthier” things to present. I’ve got plenty of ideas for stuff to make, but they’re all loaded with sugar or fat. Still – I won’t give up… I’m going to keep my search up 🙂
I want to make those donkey ear cookies one day though I think you made that name up. 🙂 It’s so funny.
Hey Maraia, they are actually called Szamár Fule (literally translates to Donkey Ears!) I have no idea where it originated from. I have not been able to find another recipe like it yet; if you come across something, please do let me know.
I remember googling the name when you first posted the recipe but got NO hits of any kind, which, even if my spelling is atrocious, doesn’t usually happen. That’s why I wondered whether the name was made up and then translated into Hungarian. 🙂
Oh well, I just got back from the bakery and scarfing down their version of Boston Cream donuts ala Tim Horton’s.
Charles, I’ve always seen Eccles in bakeries, and never knew what they were. I’ve never heard of donkey ear cookies either! 🙂 I’d be more likely to make them with raisins than currents, so I think your adaptation is right on the money.
Hi Barb – I’m really surprised they sell Eccles cakes over there – what a surprise. You should try one… make sure you eat it warm with a nice cup of tea though – so good 😀
What wonderful looking little cakes, Charles. I’m a huge fan of currants and can just imagine how this would feature them so nicely. Keep these great British recipes coming! 🙂
Thanks Betsy – I certainly will. I’m even going to try and find healthy British things too 😀
Hi Charles!
thanks , surely enjoyed my weekend here. =)
I have never seen any cakes as your eccles cakes. They look and sound gorgeous perfect surely with tea! The name sounds like eclipe, kind of mysterious to me.
thanks for sharing!
Thanks Helene – in true British fashion, it’s almost “required” to eat these with a nice cup of tea. I hope you get to try them – they’re delicious 🙂
I’ve HEARD of Eccles Cakes and, again, you’ve made them and made the process clear and easy to follow. If only there wasn’t just me in the house to bake for. 🙂 By the way, I’ve always wanted to make Maid of Honor tarts. I even bought ground almonds and still have some in my freezer, but I ran out of the appropriate jam (only apricot and quince in the fridge). Is strawberry or raspberry the more traditional form? Do you know?
Thanks A_Boleyn – to be fair, they would freeze quite well. Defrost, and warm through in the oven to crisp them up a bit again, and you’re good to go 🙂
As for Maid of Honour tarts – I have to say, until you mentioned it a few weeks ago, I’d never tried one, or heard of one, but from the recipes I see online, they seem to use mainly raspberry or strawberry jam I think – red fruits at least. I’m sure the queen won’t be offended if you use apricot instead 😀
Before I can make these Eccle cakes, I still have a couple of posts to post (one from a dim sum restaurant feast and the other a Japanese sushi dish I made), then I want to make the pork crackling biscuits again, and do something with the sweet crepes in my freezer as well as making a savoury crepe dish in honour of my Hungarian SIL. So many dishes to cook, so little room in my tummy or my freezer. 🙂
Never ever heard of Eccles cake. But it sure looks crunchy, buttery and tasty. The sweet filling is very moist and the perfect little packages look very addictive. Looking forward to your next British inspired dish:)
Thanks Malli – I was very pleased with how they turned out! Hope you’re having a nice day 🙂
I really can´t remember the last time I ate an eccles cake but it´s been many years! Never ever thought to make them and I think these would go down really well here as the Spaniards enjoy dried fruits very much. Looking forward to making a batch of these.
Thanks Chica – I didn’t know the Spanish love dried fruits so much – I thought that was something quite peculiar to the Brits. I can imagine them being popular though. They’re like little tapas-sized cakes 😀
Oh I do love little pockets of goodness. I bet I could make these, they look delightful. Hope you have benn having a lovely day.
Thanks Suzi – you definitely could – they’re not hard at all 🙂
yum yum charles! I’ve heard of them and i love how old english they sound, yet I’ve never tasted them before andhad no idea what they were made of. now I know, and they do sound and look so lovely and cute!
Hi Shuhan, they’re often sold in supermarkets in packs of 5 for a couple of pounds, or individually in bakeries. I’d really recommend buying one, they’re really tasty, and if you like them you could easily bake a batch yourself!
oops, I think I know why I missed them, I hardly go to the supermarket because I get most of my food at the farmers’ market. and when I do go, it’s usually straight for the section that I’m looking for, usually oils and vinegars, or lemons, or tea. haha. need to explore the aisles more!
I’m so glad that you had a photo of you holding one of the cakes so that we could get an idea of the true size. I think I will really like this little treat with a cup of tea.
Hi Karen – I made them quite small, which I think is best. Some places really make them quite large – maybe 3x this size, but for something like this, smaller is definitely the way to go 🙂
These sweet beauties would be wonderful with my evening tea. I’d love to try them with some dried tart cherries…..mmmmmmmm.
Hi Liz – dried tart cherries? Would be an interesting modification! I wonder how it would turn out?!
OK, don’t laugh too hard, but I bet this would work with dates too. I am raisin averse. These are really nice looking though.
Hi Greg – does your raisin aversion include currants? I absolutely think these would go with dates though… no reason why not!
You know currants aren’t bad. I know, I’m weird.
these are so cute to look at. Perfect for party i say :)Should definitely try my hand on making these.
Thanks so much Kankana – do let me know if you try them 🙂
Don’t you just hate when you can’t find a particular ingredient anywhere…! I’m quite certain I’ve never had an Eccles Cake – cute little things, aren’t they… They remind me a bit of fig newtons (pastry filled with fig paste – the store bought ones are gross but I’ve seen a few yummy homemade versions). Your cakes look so fresh and flaky – quite a success and I bet the raisins worked out great. I think they would go down very well indeed with my afternoon matcha ;).
Hmm, I didn’t have a decent fig newton in years. There’s a cookie company, LU, here which makes these revolting biscuits called “Figolu”… they look like dog biscuits, and they have a fig stuffing. Now I’m tempted to make a fig version though – thanks for the idea 😀
Check these puppies out: http://janetishungry.blogspot.com/2007/05/fig-newtons.html
I’ve never heard of Eccles Cakes before.. but they sure do look tasty. they also are similar to the Spanish tarts I’ve seen (don’t know the exact name of the treats).
Hi Kay, thanks a lot – I’ve never heard of the spanish tarts you speak of – any idea what the name is? I’m intrigued!
I have to call this little bites of deliciousness! Your pastry looks so light and fluffy and the filling – well, how can a girl raise in the southern U.S. not like all that sugar and butter and utter sweetness!?!
Haha, thanks MJ – they’re definitely not something to eat every day. All that fat and sugar, ouch – but they make a delicious occasional treat 🙂
These look so delicious and I imagine they must taste a bit like a Christmas mince pie? How strange you are unable to buy currants. I thought currants were common and available everywhere.
Hi Charlie – actually it’s one of the first things I thought when taking a bite, haha, but once you get over that and don’t think of Christmas they’re very enjoyable.
Normally I can get currants – not sure why the stores had suddenly run out :/
Oh these are soo tiny when held in your big hands!! I’m enjoying learning about British food and these look like something I would love. They remind me of the rugelach cookies.
Haha, I’m a giant! 😀 I’ve never heard of rugelach cakes – I’m going to go look them up now 🙂
I was going to make rugelach for Christmas. It didn’t happen but I have a great/easy recipe I can email you if you want it. You’ll love rugelach dough … equal parts butter and cream cheese. A dieter’s nightmare but the cookies are oh so good. 🙂
Oh my god – that sounds amazing 😀 I’d love the recipe if you have the time – thanks so much!
Hi Charles! I’m not familiar with British food (unless very popular) and I’ve never tried this one before. I love the filling – I always enjoy raisins and cinnamon combination. I always think your pastry pie looks so perfect (the one you are cutting out). Mine would be very lumpy and not beautiful like yours. Sigh! Thank you for sharing, and I look forward to checking Britisih food! 🙂
Haha, I don’t believe that at all Nami – you should give it a try. I read a great tip on a blog a while ago for rolling it. Don’t flip the pastry over – just roll, rotate 90 degrees, roll some more, rotate – just make sure the surface underneath is well floured. It’s a much easier way to get smooth, well rolled pastry 🙂
Cheers for English cakes, they are always so classy and lovely and somehow the mere mention of them reminds one of tea, I mean, for some reason it does that to me 🙂 Looking forward to the rest of your postings, just keep it coming, and don’t you ever get bored:p How can you get bored of English, it’s unthinkable:p
Haha, thanks Christy – I think if you’d lived there your whole life you’d get bored eventually, and let’s face it – we don’t have the best reputation for food, although it’s slowly changing a bit these days thanks to celebrity chefs 🙂
Ah, these look so cute! The pastry looks just spot one and I’m just thinking here… dipping them into so whipped cream would work well wouldn’t it?
Hi Gourmantine – I see absolutely no reason at all why having them with whipped cream would be bad – of course, it would be like eating fat with more fat, but who cares – you only live once, right? 😀
Indeed! I see nothing wrong with fat and fat! (occasionally that is!)
It sounds very intriguing… I’m looking forward to seeing the next recipe!
Now I think my understanding of English is bad. Does “vegetable shortening” mean also oil? Because I like oil in cakes. I just find margarine and other false butter, solid stuffs not pleasant. Oil (when neutrally tasting) is sometimes better than butter from the texture point of view.
Hi Sissi – shortening refers to any fat used in cooking, but vegetable shortening doesn’t have to be margarine. In my mind, when I think of “good” vegetable shortening, I think of something like ‘Trex‘ – which can be easily bought in the UK and is very popular for making pastry.
Thank you, Charles. I have always thought “shortening” meant solid fat. I have seen Trex is not hydrogenated. Looks good and very interesting. I was sure all the vegetable fats were hydrogenated.
Those look like lovely little bites, and I even happen to have a scale and currants in my pantry. But what is demerara sugar? Can I substitute regular granulated sugar?
Hi Jen – I believe it’s called turbinado sugar in the US – it’s quite coarse, light brown, loose sugar.
Oh, Charles, these sound absolutely amazing!! I have never tried these, I’m wondering why? This is great Charles, thank you 🙂
Thanks Sydney – they’re really great, when you take a bite and all these currants tumble out… such a great flavour 🙂
Eh but really, who wants to eat healthy desserts? Bring on the sugar and butter! 😉 I’m with Karen, love the shot of you holding the cookie. Nice to get an idea of the actual size and a close up of that fabulous flaky crust and gooey interior–oh MY!
Haha, thanks Caroline – I’ve never been a fan of “healthy” desserts myself. If I want to be healthy after dinner I’ll eat some fruit or something.
I’ve never heard of eccles cakes before, and that looks absolutely yummy 🙂
I think they’re very uniquely British – you should give them a try Kiran 🙂
Charles, you read my mind! I took a picture of these at a bakery in London because I had NO idea what they were….I was planning on looking them up to see what they were made of, but now I don’t have to! Thank you for doing all the research for me!
Hi Ann – it’s too bad you didn’t have a chance to try one from the bakery, but maybe at least you can give a try at making them yourself if you’re curious!
These little cookies look so good (no doubt because of all the butter and rasisins)! I definitely wouldn’t be able to stop after eating just one.
Hi Kyleen – no way, I ate like 4 before I’d even transferred them to a cooling rack. Talk about addictive!
I love these and your recipe seems so simple and easy! I’m putting on weight like crazy these days and looking at these eccles cakes does not help…I have all the ingredients ready to go…might be a good idea for the weekend, I just made chococlate chips cookies and Roulé à la confiture for my guests. I was thinking to add something Turkish but now I might make these.
Hi Nada – these aren’t ideal if you’re looking to lose weight… all the butter and sugar… doesn’t make for a good diet, but they’re definitely worth a try at one point – I hope you get a chance to try them 🙂
These look like something that I’d love to enjoy! Thanks for sharing Charles!
Thanks so much Yudith – hope you’re having a great day 🙂