You’ll spot them in bakery windows all over the North West. Flat, round, golden and crusted with sugar, with the fruit pushing its way up through the pastry.
The Eccles cake is one of Britain’s great bakery survivors. It’s been traced back to the 18th century, shipped across the Atlantic and celebrated in a Victorian railway guide, and it’s still made by hand two hundred years later.
Here’s where it came from, and what goes into it.
What Are Eccles Cakes?
Despite the name, an Eccles cake isn’t really a cake at all.
It’s a small round pastry: buttery puff pastry wrapped around a sweet, spiced currant filling, then flattened, slashed across the top and finished with a crunchy layer of sugar. It bakes up golden and flaky, with the filling caramelising slightly at the edges where it catches.
The texture is the whole point. You get the shatter of the pastry, the crunch of sugar on top, then a soft, jammy, spiced middle. Rich without being heavy, and hard to beat beside a cup of tea.
Where Do Eccles Cakes Come From?
Eccles cakes take their name from the town of Eccles, a few miles west of Manchester and part of historic Lancashire.
That name goes back much further than the pastry. “Eccles” comes from the Greek ecclesia, meaning a church or an assembly. In the Middle Ages, the town held an annual service known as the Eccles Wakes, followed by a fair where food and drink were sold.
Like so many British bakes, this one began life tied to a religious festival. The Eccles cake is thought to have been made for the feast day of St Mary, when the whole town turned out for music and dancing.
The First Eccles Cake Shop
The commercial story starts with a shopkeeper called James Birch, who sold small, flat, fruit-filled cakes from his shop on Vicarage Road in Eccles in the late 1700s. They sold, quite literally, like hot cakes.
There may well have been a recipe before him though. In 1769, Elizabeth Raffald published The Experienced English Housekeeper, a best-selling cookery book containing a recipe for “sweet patties” that looks remarkably like an early Eccles cake.
Whether anyone carried it into Eccles, we’ll never know.
What’s in an Eccles Cake?
The ingredients list is short, which is exactly why quality matters so much.
A traditional Eccles cake is made with:
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Puff pastry, ideally an all-butter one
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Currants, plump and sweet, for the filling
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Butter and sugar, stirred through the fruit
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Mixed spice and nutmeg, for that warm, old-fashioned flavour
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Candied citrus peel, for a little brightness against the richness
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A sugar crust on top, for crunch
That’s it. Just good fruit, the right spices and proper pastry.
The pastry is where the difference really shows. Butter is expensive and awkward to work with, so larger producers often swap it for harder fats that hold their shape more easily. The trouble is those fats melt at a higher temperature than your mouth does, so the pastry clings to your palate instead of melting away.
Butter melts. It’s the whole reason a handmade Eccles cake tastes the way it does.
Eccles, Banbury or Chorley?
Eccles cakes have a couple of close relatives, and they’re easy to mix up.
Banbury cakes come from Oxfordshire and are oval rather than round, usually a little more heavily spiced. Chorley cakes, another Lancashire bake, use shortcrust instead of puff, contain less sugar and are traditionally eaten with a slice of Lancashire cheese.
Our Take on a Lancashire Classic
We’re a family-run bakery in Lancashire, so this addition to our line-up was never really optional.
Our Eccles Cake wraps golden puff pastry around plump currants and citrus peel, warmed through with nutmeg and traditional mixed spice, then finished with a delicate sugar glaze for that sweet, flaky crunch.
It’s comforting, a bit old-school, and exactly the kind of bake that makes an ordinary afternoon feel better than it was five minutes ago. Serve it slightly warm with a proper brew, or add it to an afternoon tea spread.
We handmake every one in small batches, then wrap it carefully for its journey from our table to yours. Same premium ingredients, same care we put into every traybake that leaves our family-run bakery.
Ready for a Proper Eccles Cake?
Over two hundred years later, the Eccles cake is still one of the best things you can put next to a cup of tea. We’re proud to bake ours here in Lancashire, by hand, using the kind of ingredients this little pastry has always deserved.
Order yours online and we’ll send a taste of Lancashire straight to your door. Or pop into the Bake House and pick one up in person.
Want first dibs on new bakes, limited editions and a bit of bakery history along the way? Join the Crumb Club and we’ll keep you in the loop.
Research
- Amanda Ruggeri (2017). The cake that comes with a warning. BBC Travel.
- Anon (2003). The history behind (and recipe for) Eccles Cakes. Salford City Council.
