Chorley Cakes
Flat, round Lancashire pastries of buttery flaky pastry filled with currants and sugar, eaten plain or with Lancashire cheese.
Photograph credit: Chorley cake and Eccles cake by Dr Greg · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons · this resized copy is shared under the same licence
Chorley Cakes: Step by Step
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Heat the oven to 200°C / 390°F (180°C / 355°F fan) and line a baking tray.
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Mix the currants, brown sugar, melted butter and mixed spice.
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Roll the pastry to 3 mm thick and cut 10 rounds, 10 cm across. Put a spoonful of filling in the centre of each, gather the edges and pinch to seal.
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Turn each over, seam-side down, and roll gently until the currants show through. Slash the tops three times.
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Brush with the milk, sprinkle with the caster sugar and bake for 20 minutes until golden.
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Things to Watch For
- Keep the pastry cold.
- Do not roll too hard or the currants burst through.
- Serve with a wedge of Lancashire cheese.
Good to Know About Chorley Cakes
Chorley cakes are not eccles cakes, and anyone from Lancashire will tell you so. They are flatter, plainer and less sweet. The pastry is a flaky one, not puff, there is no sugar glaze, and the filling is currants and a little sugar with no spice. They are eaten for tea, buttered and with a slice of Lancashire cheese on the side.
A flaky pastry is made by rolling and folding butter into dough. For speed, a good-quality shop-bought puff pastry gives a fine result. If making your own, use a rough method: grate frozen butter into the flour, add cold water, fold and roll four times. Keep everything cold. Warm butter melts into the flour and loses the layers.
Cut 10 cm rounds. Put a spoonful of currants mixed with brown sugar and a knob of butter in the middle, gather the edges together and press shut, then turn over so the seam is underneath. Roll gently with a rolling pin until the currants show through faintly.
Slash the top three times, brush with milk and sprinkle with sugar. Bake at 200°C / 390°F for 20 minutes, until golden. Eat warm or cold.
To Go With It
Lancashire cheese · Butter · Hot tea · Apple chutney
Storing Leftovers
Keeps in an airtight tin for 3 days.
Chorley Cakes Nutrition Facts
Per serving, calculated from the ingredient list with USDA FoodData Central figures (SR Legacy). A calculation, not a laboratory analysis: brands, cuts and how you measure change the real numbers. How the figures are worked out.
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Compiled by Turab
Checked by script for timings, diet labels and nutrition arithmetic. How the recipes are checked. Found a mistake? Tell us.
First published ; last changed .
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