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Eccles Cake - a profileWith its flaky puff pastry, the humble Eccles cake may look no match for the mighty muffin or the dominant Danish. But it's not all about currant affairs - reflect, if you will, on more than 200 years on the top shelf. | 

| - In 1769: Mrs Elizabeth Raffald’s influential cookery book, ‘The Experienced English Housekeeper’ included the recipe for "sweet patties" – thought to be the original Eccles cake.
- It had the following ingredients: ‘meat of a boiled calf’s foot (gelatine), plus apples, oranges, nutmeg, egg yolk, currants and French brandy enveloped in a good puff pastry which could be either fried or baked.’
- Eccles cakes were first sold in 1793 at James Birch’s shop on the corner of Vicarage Road and Church St in Eccles.
- In 1818, they were said to be sold 'at all the markets and fairs around and are even exported to America and the West Indies'.
- The word 'Eccles' means church and is derived from the Greek word 'Ecclesia'
- In the middle ages an annual service 'Eccles Wakes' took place at the church in Eccles where Eccles cakes were sold
- In 1850, when the Puritans gained power, they banned the Eccles cake due to its ‘juicy and exotic richness!’
- Exported cakes probably included brandy and rum to preserve them.
- In Parliament, a question was once tabled: could non-Eccles made cakes still be referred to (and sold) as Eccles cakes?
- The current recipe is a closely guarded secret. One of the most famous expressions in Eccles is "The secret dies with me!".
- The Manchester-based Lancashire Eccles Cake company makes 600,000 cakes a week
- Its Eccles cakes are famous throughout the world - the company exports thousands to the USA, Germany and Spain from its factory on Hyde Rd in Ardwick.
|  | | last updated: 04/11/04 |  | SEE ALSO
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