Westmorland Currant Pastry is a traditional English recipe (from Westmorland in Cumbria) for a classic tea-time treat of pastry squares with a spiced currant filling flavoured with rum. The full recipe is presented here and I hope you enjoy this classic English version of: Westmorland Currant Pastry.
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Ingredients:
For the Pastry:
225g plain flour
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp caster sugar
50g butter
50g lard
cold water, to bind
caster sugar, for dusting
For the Filling:
50g butter
175g currants
1/2 tsp ground allspice
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
generous pinch of ground mace
freshly-grated zest of 1/2 lemon
50g soft brown sugar
1 tbsp dark rum
Method:
For the filling: Melt the butter in a saucepan then stir in the currants, spices, lemon zest and sugar. Cook gently until the sugar has just dissolved then take off the heat and set aside to cool.
For the pastry, sift together the flour, sat and sugar into a bowl. Dice the butter and lard, add to the flour mix and rub in with your fingers (do not over work at this stage, as the finished pastry needs to be a little flaky). Add enough cold water to bring the ingredients together as a dough then divide in half and roll each piece out into a square.
Arrange one square of pastry on a greased baking tray. Stir the rum into the cooled filling mixture then spread evenly onto the square of pastry, leaving a 1cm border all the way around. Brush the margins of the pastry with water then sit the second rectangle of pastry on to. Press the edges together to seal and crimp with the tines of a fork. Use the fork to prick all over the surface of the pastry.
Transfer to an oven pre-heated to 220°C and bake for 15 minutes, or until the pastry is just set. At this point, reduce the oven temperature to 180°C and bake for 20 minutes more, or until the surface of the pastry is golden brown.
Remove from the oven and dredge thickly with caster sugar. Allow to cool before cutting into generous squares and serving. This can be served cold with tea, or it can be served warm with custard as a dessert.
