Chorley cakes

 This doesn't quite reach the classic status of my previous posts, croissants in fact the chorley cake simply oozes humbleness. My dad liked these and so do I (my sister, Sarah does too), whenever I am in a British supermarket I put a packet of these in my shopping basket.  The other day I had an uncontrollable desire to have a chorley cake and we has some currants left over from the chistmas pudding ingredients so I looked up a recipe. There are several recipes on the net and I chose one but disagreed with one thing. The recipe says to paint the cakes with eggwash but the chorley cake is white not brown. The pastry appears to be slightly underbaked.

 The one in the photo is a little too brown and a bit to thick. Here is a shop bought one.

 Ingredients

• 100g flour
• 50g butter
• 1/2 a teaspoon of baking powder
• a pinch of salt
  
• some currants 
• a bit more butter
• sugar 

Method

Make pastry in the normal way but add baking powder. This isn't normal but gives a lighter result. Roll out the pastry so it's quite thin. The area of the pastry should be so big that you can cut out 2 saucer sized circles from it. You are going to make 3 cakes, the third is made from the scraps after cutting out the first 2. It's difficult to get it really thin without it sticking to the surface. I roll out on a piece of baking paper which makes it easier to lift.  

So, cut out 3 saucer sized circles. put a pile of currants on the middle of a circle. pile as many as you can but leave a 1 cm gap between the pile and the edge of the circle. add a sprinkle of sugar and a small knog of butter. Now gather in the sides and pinch together to make ball then flatten slightly in your hands and place on a paper line baking tray with the join underneath. Flatten it further with you palm and play around with it to make a circle.

Bake at 200 degrees C for 20 minutes