Cooking With Sean #1 - Eccles Cakes

Earlier this week we brought you news of a new cookery book from Sean Wilson, who played Martin Platt on Coronation Street, to accompany his forthcoming TV series on Channel 5. At the time I promised that I would give some of the recipes a go and report back.

So, here is my first attempt to bake Eccles Cakes. I'd read the recipe and it all seemed quite straightforward but when I read it again and compared it with other recipes for Eccles Cakes, the quantities seemed a little on the high side. Sean's recipe is supposed to make 12 cakes but I ended up with far more than that, maybe I should have been making them bigger.

As I thought before I started, the recipe was really easy to follow. Like most cooks, Sean recommends using ready made puff pastry and as life's too short to make pastry (and my hands are too warm for rubbing in) I had to agree. The filling was simple to make, consisting of currants, cinnamon, numeg, butter and orange zest. The recipe recommends using Vostizza currants if you can get them but they didn't have any in Morrison's.

Having rolled out the pastry I searched around for a 12-15cm pastry cutter but we don't have one so I ended up using a small dish which would give me a 12cm disc. I ended up with 15 cakes and still had some pastry left over. Filling the discs was a bit fiddly but I managed in the end. There was plenty of filling left too, I reckon I could have made another 4 or 5 cakes out of the leftovers but opted for 1 extra large one instead. If I do this recipe again then I'll cut the quantities in half.

Most importantly, what do they taste like? Well, as yet I don't know. We've got visitors coming to stay tonight and I'm not sure it would be right for me to start scoffing their tea before they've even arrived. But I'll report back later as I'm sure our guests and my lovely wife will too. (Edit: Sorry guests, I couldn't wait. They're really nice, the orange zest really comes through and there's a nice hint of spice from the cinnamon and nutmeg (next time I may try adding a little more). I'll also try rolling the pastry out a little thicker though that would mean having some filling left over).

Don't forget, if you want to win a copy of Sean's book, we've got a competition running at the moment.

We've got all the ingredients in for Sean's "Lemony Coriandery Chicken" which we'll probably be having a go at on Sunday and will blog about afterwards.

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