Food and drink

Eccles Cakes

Eccles Cake - a profile

• 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.