To make madling cakes is a traditional British recipe, based on Hannah Glasse's recipe of 1747, for a classic yeasted cake made from a blend of flour, mutton suet and allspice that's rolled thinly, filled with currants, allowed to rise and oven baked until crisp and golden. The full recipe is presented here and I hope you enjoy this classic British version of: To make madling cakes.
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This is a traditional British recipe redacted from Hannah Glasse's 1747 volume The Aft of Cookery Made Plain and Easy, the classic Georgian cookbook.
To make madling cakes
TO a quarter of a peck of flour well dried at the fire, add two pounds of mutton ſuet fried and ſtrained clear off ; when it is a little cool, mix it well with the flour, ſome ſalt, and a very little all-ſpice beat fine ; take half a pint of good yeaſt, and put in half a pint of water, ſtir it well together, ſtrain it, and mix up your flour into a paſte of moderate ſtiffneſs. You muſt make it into cakes about the thickneſs and bigneſs of an oat-cake : have ready ſome currants clean waſhed and picked, ſtrew ſome juſt in the middle of your cakes between your dough, ſo that none can be ſeen till the cake is broke. You may leave the currants out, if you don't chuſe them.
Modern Redaction
Are these the antecedents of eccles cakes? I think they may just be after all you have a spiced pastry (albeit yeasted and not flaky) with a currant filling that's oven baked.
Ingredients:
1.15kg plain flour
900g mutton suet (or lard)
salt, to taste
ground allspice, to taste
300ml ale yeast (or two sachets of active, dried, yeast dissolved in 200ml lukewarm water with a pinch of sugar)
300ml warm water (400ml if you are using dried yeast)
100g currants, washed and picked over
Method:
Chop the mutton suet, place in a frying pan and heat gently until the suet dissolves. Strain off the clear fat (discard any solids) and mix this in with the flour, salt and a little allspice.
Make up your yeast and combine this with enough water to give your 600ml in total. Strain this into the flour then work into the flour until you have a fairly stiff dough. Cover and set aside in a warm place to rise for about 1 hour.
After this time, knock the dough back, turn out onto a floured work surface and roll out to about 4mm thick. Cut into rounds or squares about 6cm in diameter. Place a few currants in the centre of half these shapes then take the other pastry pieces and press them over the top, sealing the edges, so that the currants cannot be seen.
Cover with a cloth, and leave to rise for 20 minutes then transfer to greased baking trays and place in an oven pre-heated to 180°C. Bake for about 25 minutes, or until crisp and golden. Allow to cool before storing or serving.
