Name: Eccles Cakes
Ingredients: 1 pound puff pastry; mincemeat; 2 tablespoons castor sugar

Eccles Cakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

1 pound puff pastry
mincemeat
2 tablespoons castor sugar

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the pastry

Roll out the puff pastry to ¼ inch thick.
Divide the pastry in half and spread mincemeat on one half.
Cover with the other half of the pastry and trim the edges neatly.
Prick the top with a fork and cut into rounds or squares.

Bake

Brush with cold water, dust with castor sugar, and bake at 400°F (200°C) for 15 minutes.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

What each ingredient does

Puff pastry: Its layers of fat and dough puff up in the oven to form a flaky, crisp shell.
Mincemeat: Its sugar and fruit fill the pastry with sweetness and moisture as it bakes.
Castor sugar: Dusted on top, it caramelises and browns the surface for a crisp, sweet finish.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.