Eccles cakes

When I first moved to Yorkshire I lived just a little way away from the hotel I was working in, but I took a detour between shifts to stop and get some Eccles cakes from the bakers in town. Go home have a cup of tea watch the television and eat the cakes.

To make them you will need
75g/3oz butter
150g/5oz soft brown sugar
150g/5oz currants
1 tsp ground cinnamon
½ tsp freshly ground nutmeg
1 orange, juice and finely grated zest
50g/2oz mixed citrus peel
1kg block ready-made puff pastry
2-3 tbsp milk,
2-3 tbsp sugar
icing sugar

For the filling, melt the butter over a low heat in a saucepan. Then remove from the heat and stir in the sugar, currants, cinnamon, nutmeg, orange juice and zest and mixed peel. Mix it al together and set it to one side to cool down.

Now you can make your own pastry for this or you can go out and buy some. I have posted a recipe for puff pastry so if you follow that you should be good to go. But if you do not have time or can not be bother then go out and buy some it does not matter.

Preheat your oven to 220c/425f , a very hot oven. Lightly flour a surface and roll out the pastry till it is about 3 to 4 mm thick or about ⅛in. Use a cutter to cut a disk of pastry then place a spoonful of the mix in the middle. Glaze the edge of the pastry disk with the milk and place another disk on the top and pinch down the edges. Glaze that with the milk then sprinkle on some of the sugar. Now once you have made all you cakes pop them on to a greased a baking tray in to the fridge for about 10 to 15 minutes to rest the pastry.

Take out the cakes cut a cross in the centre and bake for 10 minuets , pull out and sprinkle over some more sugar and return to the oven. Bake for about another 5 minutes till golden brown. Remove from the oven and cool on a rack. Then dust with icing sugar before you serve them.

A perfect in-between shift snack.