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Dessert

Eccles Cakes

A puff pastry pastry filled with currants, candied peel, and cake crumbs, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Eccles Cakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA sharp oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the pastry

  1. Roll out the puff pastry to about ⅛ inch thick.

  2. Use a round cutter to stamp out circles about 4 inches in diameter.

Make the filling

  1. In a bowl, mix together the cake crumbs, currants, candied peel, sugar, and lemon juice.

  2. Place a teaspoon of the mixture on each round of pastry.

Shape and bake

  1. Fold the edges of the pastry over the filling to enclose it.

  2. Press the cakes down flat and roll them out lightly to about 3 inches in diameter.

  3. Place the cakes on a baking sheet, folded side down.

  4. Brush the tops with egg wash and make two small cuts on top with a knife.

  5. Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) for about 20 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

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  2. Currant + lemontop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,270 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  3. Currant + sugartop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,256 recipes

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Puff pastry
Forms the flaky, layered outer case that puffs and crisps in the oven.
Cake crumbs
Soak up moisture and give the filling a soft, tender body.
Currants
Add chewy texture and concentrated fruity sweetness to the filling.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps the top brown in the oven.
Candied peel
Adds bright, aromatic citrus flavour and chewy bits to the filling.

The step that matters

Enclosing the filling and flattening the cakes. If the edges are not sealed well, the filling can leak and burn during baking. Pressing the cakes flat and rolling them lightly gives an even shape so they bake through without the filling boiling out.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, lemon):

  1. Orangefits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Vanillafits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, lemon. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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.

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