I don’t know what possessed me. It could have been the erratic path that my mind usually travels down with regards to leftover food.
The leftover christmas pudding and the unused roll of puff pastry glared at me every time I opened the fridge. I had planned to make a mincemeat and puff pastry roll, but that would have meant opening a new jar of mincemeat. This seemed like a waste, so after a little mulling I found myself looking at a recipe for guidance on the component parts of an Eccles cake.
For those who haven’t had the pleasure an Eccles cake is a traditional sweet treat which is a round, flat, pastry parcel stuffed with dried fruits, sprinkled with sugar and baked. I haven’t eaten many, but my husband is a fan.
Getting back to the component parts… pastry, which I was supposed to make from scratch but I had the roll in the fridge. The only difference was the scratch pastry added lemon juice. So I added lemon juice into the crumbled up Christmas pudding before stuffing. Then dried fruit moistened and spiced. Sounds almost like christmas pudding to me, so I crumbled up a little of the pudding, added lemon and orange juice, and a sprinkling of soft light brown sugar.
I cut rounds from the pastry with the largest cutter I had then plonked a heaped teaspoon of the filling in the middle. After brushing the edges with water I gathered the edges into the middle creating a parcel which was then flipped when the join was secure. I shoved the balls in the fridge for a while to firm up because I’m sure I was slow and the pastry was softening. This interlude was okay, it gave me chance to finish the American biscuits, and my first attempt at croissants with the help of the bread machine.
After about twenty minutes I pulled the Eccles balls from the fridge and flattened them with a rolling pin until the filling threatened to burst from its wrapping. As instructed I made two slits on the top of each and brushed with egg white before sprinkling with the nearest to the recommended sugar, Demerara, the into the oven they went for about 15 minutes.
The result? They turned out better than I could have hoped, and husb said that they were better than an Eccles cake which can sometimes be too sweet depending on one’s mood. I know I’m not an authority, but I thought the half I tried tasted great too!
I still have christmas pudding to use so I will be recreating this and recording the recipe for posterity, after all— this was a virtually ‘no effort’ effort!
The More You Think... 