Eccles Cake
(or and with much affection, Dead Fly Pies)
I love Eccles Cakes, I remember my Mom bringing them home from the Bakery as a special treat when I was a boy. Even in later life I would be compelled to buy them if I spotted them in the display at any Bakery I was going through. This pastry is a very pleasing combination of spicy and fruity with that wonderful flaky pastry topped with chunky sugar. They are a time consuming bake, but the result is pure culinary art. Well worth the effort to see the looks of happiness on your families faces as they tuck in!
Pastry
250g of frozen butter
350g of A.P. flour
Ice water
Filling
25g of butter
200g of currants
50g of chopped mixed peel
100g of table sugar
1 Tsp of Cinnamon
1 Tsp of ground Allspice
1 Tsp of Ginger
Zest of one Orange
A few tablespoons of Orange juice
Glaze
1 Egg white beaten
Enough Turbinado Sugar to sprinkle
Directions
Put the A.P. flour in a large mixing bowl. Cube the frozen butter and put half the butter in with the flour. Take a pastry cutter and begin to combine the flour and butter. Cut until you have a pea sized texture. Now put the other half of the cubed butter in and lightly cut. You want some fairly large pieces of butter left so your pastry will become flaky when you bake.
Ice water by the Tbs mix by hand until your dough comes together. Go lightly and don't over mix.
Place dough on a floured surface and roll out to a 20cm by 30cm rectangle. Now we are going to make cheater puff pastry so the folding will begin.
Place the dough longways going away from you. Reach over to the furthest edge and fold back towards you as far as the middle of the rectangle. Take the closest edge to you and fold that to meet the other edge in the middle. Fold these two fold onto themselves and end up with a small rectanlge. Cover and put in the refrigerator for 15 minutes.
Roll, fold, chill and repeat 3 more times.
This is going to take awhile so make some tea and so some cleanup in the kitchen. This will also give you plenty of time to make the Eccles filling.
After the third roll and fold leave the pastry to relax in the refrigerator for 30 minutes.
To make the filling. Melt the 25g of butter in a small sauce pan. Then combine all the other ingredients and stir until combined. Add as much Orange juice as you like to make it less dry and stick together. Put this to one side to cool and taste frequently. But don't eat so much that you don't have enough to fill the pies!
To make the cakes roll out the rested dough in a large sheet about three milometers thick (thickness of two loonies stacked). Cut out 10 12 centimeter rounds.You can reroll the trimmings if necessary.
Place a generous Tbs of filling in the center of each round and wet the circle edges with water to seal.
Fold circle like a dumpling and crimp. Turn over and flatten into an oblong shape with a rolling pin. Roll very lightly, just until the filling starts to show through the top of the dough. Place on a baking tray. When all are done cut two or three slits as you like on the tops, brush with beaten egg whites and sprinkle liberally with the chunky turbinado sugar.
Now bake these off in your 400F preheated oven for 40 minutes. Most of the recipes I see call for 15 to 20 minutes, but they always seem underdone to me at that point. I like my dough to be cooked so I leave them the whole 40 minutes. Remove from oven and cool on a wire rack. Spend a few glorious moments enjoying the look of these beauties cooling on the rack and breath in the spicy goodness coming off the hot pastry!!
Set a couple aside for yourself, these wonderful cakes will not be around long once your kith and kin see them.
