A freshly baked Eccles cake, from Bettys café. Bettys (without the apostrophe is Bettys and Taylors of Harrogate, a Swiss - Yorkshire family company with seven locations in North Yorkshire,

An Eccles cake is a small, round cake filled with currants and made from puff pastry with butter and topped with demerara sugar. The Zante currant ( Vitis vinifera) or currant is a variety of Small, Sweet, seedless Grape named after Corinth (currant and Baking, a puff pastry (pâte feuilletée Spanish: hojaldre; German: Blätterteig) is a light flaky unleavened Pastry Demerara (also spelled as 'demerera' is used as the generic name of a type of specialty raw cane Sugar often used in home baking and in sweetening coffee and tea

Name and origin

Eccles cakes are named after the English town of Eccles, in Salford. England is a Country which is part of the United Kingdom. Its inhabitants account for more than 83% of the total UK population whilst its mainland Eccles is a town within the Metropolitan borough of the City of Salford, in Greater Manchester, England. Salford lies at the heart of the City of Salford, a Metropolitan borough of Greater Manchester, in North West England. 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, 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 and Fly Cake or even a Fly's Graveyard, owing to the appearance of the currants that it contains.

Similar pastries

The Garibaldi biscuit is a smaller, drier cousin, and is also referred to as a Fly Cake and related terms. The Garibaldi biscuit consists of currants squashed between two thin rectangular Biscuits - a currant sandwich

The Chorley cake (from the town of Chorley in Lancashire) is flatter in appearance, is made with shortcrust pastry rather than puff pastry and is devoid of sugar topping. Chorley cakes are flattened fruit-filled pastry cakes traditionally associated with the town of Chorley in Lancashire, England. Chorley is a Market town in Lancashire, in North West England. Lancashire is a non-metropolitan county of historic origin in the North West of England, bounded to the west by the Irish Sea Shortcrust pastry is a type of Pastry often used for the base of a Tart or Pie. Baking, a puff pastry (pâte feuilletée Spanish: hojaldre; German: Blätterteig) is a light flaky unleavened Pastry

Uses

Traditionally paired with Lancashire cheese, as is Chorley cake. Lancashire cheese, a crumbly English cow's-milk Cheese, is considered one of the premier products of the county

Notes