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Dessert

Eccles Cakes

A puff pastry pastry filled with mincemeat and dusted with castor sugar, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Eccles Cakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

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

  1. Roll out the puff pastry to ¼ inch thick.

  2. Divide the pastry in half and spread mincemeat on one half.

Shape

  1. Cover with the other half of the pastry and trim the edges neatly.

  2. Prick the top with a fork and cut into rounds or squares.

Glaze and bake

  1. Brush the pastry with cold water.

  2. Dust with castor sugar.

  3. 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 water make steam in the oven, lifting the pastry into flaky layers.
Mincemeat
Adds sweetness, moisture and spiced fruit flavour to the filling.
Castor sugar
Sweetens the top and helps the surface brown and crisp in the oven.

The step that matters

Bake at 400°F (200°C) for 15 minutes. Puff pastry rises because steam forms from the water in its layers of fat. A hot oven sets the pastry quickly, so the layers puff before the fat melts out and the pastry flattens.

“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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