Eccles cake
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An Eccles cake is a small, round cake filled with currants and made from puff pastry with butter and topped with demerara sugar.
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[edit] Name and origin
Eccles cakes are named after the English town of Eccles, in Salford. It is not known who invented the recipe, but James Birch is credited with being the first person to sell Eccles cakes on a commercial basis, which he sold from his shop at the corner of Vicarage Road and St Mary’s Road (now known as Church Street) in the town centre, in 1793.[1]
Nicknames for the Eccles cake include Squashed Fly Cake, Fly Cake, Fly Pie or even a Fly's Graveyard, owing to the appearance of the currants that it contains.
[edit] Similar pastries
The Garibaldi biscuit is a smaller, drier cousin, and is also referred to as a Fly Cake and related terms.
The Chorley cake (from the town of Chorley in Lancashire) is flatter in appearance, is made with shortcrust pastry rather than flaky pastry and is devoid of sugar topping.
Banbury cakes are an oval shaped cake from the town of Banbury.
The people of the island nation of Trinidad and Tobago, have produced a similar pastry called a Currant roll, made with flaky pastry and currants, which is rolled, baked, then cut into diagonal slices.
The traditional Chinese Sweetheart cake called Kang Shi Lau Po Pin (老婆饼) is quite similar to an Eccles Cake, although the spicy fruit filling is candied melon.
[edit] Uses
Traditionally paired with Lancashire cheese, as is Chorley cake.
[edit] Notes
- ^ "Detailed History The history behind (and recipe for) Eccles Cakes" (HTTP). Salford City Council. http://www.salford.gov.uk/living/yourcom/salfordlife/aboutsalford/salfordlocalhistory/localhistory-eccles/ecclescakes.htm Detailed History. Retrieved 2007-04-10.
[edit] External links
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