Chester Cake

Name: Chester Cake
Cuisine: Irish
Ingredients: 225 g currants; 225 g raisins; 75 g butter, diced; 225 g brown sugar; grated rind of 1 lemon; caster sugar, for sprinkling; 1 egg; 150 ml milk; small pinch of salt; 450 g plain flour; 8 tablespoons very cold water; 275 g butter, diced; 75 g plain flour; 600 ml measure of stale bread, cut up small; 1 teaspoon baking powder; 1 teaspoon mixed spice

Preparation info

Makes
9–12
Squares

Difficulty
Easy

Appears in

The New Ballymaloe Bread Book

By Darina Allen

Published 2023

About

This recipe is from a newspaper cutting of Mary Frances Keating’s recipes from the early 1950s. It tastes good despite the quantity of bread. This is the Cork version of gur cake. Scotland has black bun. Canny bakers everywhere probably have their own recipe for using up stale bread and cake.

Ingredients

Pastry:

450 g plain flour
small pinch of salt
275

Europe
Ireland
Cake
Vegetarian

Method

Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F/gas mark 4.

To make the pastry, sieve the flour and salt into a large bowl. Add the butter and cut it through the flour until it resembles coarse breadcrumbs. Add the cold water, mixing it in with a knife to a fairly stiff dough. Gather and knead