Rose Prince's Baking Club: Eccles cakes This week it's the currant-full pastries of Lancashire, the Eccles cake. Eccles cakes have suffered a little from being Mr Kiplinged, meaning that they have fallen from being a fresh-baked baking counter item to something sold in a packet with shelf life. But a freshly baked Eccles cake, full of syrupy spiced currants, is something I like with a piece of Lancashire cheese after a weekend lunch. You can make the pastry yourself, or buy the best-quality butter puff pastry you can find. Makes approximately 8 A baking sheet, lined with baking parchment For the pastry 250g/9oz plain flour 250g/9oz unsalted butter 125ml/4 ½ fl oz ice-old water For the filling 120g/4oz currants 60g/2oz butter A few gratings of nutmeg 60g/2oz soft dark brown sugar 1 egg white Granulated or demerara sugar - for dusting To make the pastry: 1st stage: Put the butter between 2 sheets of greaseproof paper and tap hard with a rolling pin to soften. Put all the flour in a heap on the work surface and add the butter breaking it up into thumbnail-size pieces. Add the water and form into a dryish dough; wrap the piece of dough in greaseproof paper and put in the fridge for 15 minutes. 2nd stage: Roll the pastry into a rectangle, about 20x40cm/8x16 inches. Fold it into three, like a letter, tap it with a rolling pin, turn it 180 degrees, then roll out again to 20x40cm. Repeat the process, fold, tap with the rolling pin, wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes. The pastry should by now have absorbed the dry and floury bits. 3rd stage: Repeat the rolling, folding and tapping one last time and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes before using the pastry. Between resting the pastry, make the filling. Put the currants, butter, nutmeg and brown sugar into a small pan and bring to the boil. Cook for about a minute then allow to cool. This will soften the currants and makes the juices around them syrupy. Preheat the oven to 220C/425F/7 gas. Roll out the pastry on a floured worktop to ½ cm thick and cut 10cm/4in rounds. Put a dessert spoonful of filling into the centre of each round and pinch the edges together to enclose it. Turn over the cake and place it, joined side down, on the baking sheet. Repeat with the others, then brush with egg white. Score the surface with a sharp knife and then dust with sugar. Bake for 15 minutes or until the cakes are golden and puffed. Allow to cool a little and then eat them as soon as possible. I have had a couple of frustrated letters from readers who have made the raspberry loaf cakes and feel the quantity of fruit is wrong. The recipe asks for 300g. "Why 300g?" says Susan Martin. I bought 300g large raspberries and just 18 of them weighed 145g! Such scrupulous readers, equipped with scales, make me hang my head but the problem with fruit quantities crops up all the time. How many apple slices are needed for a tart, how much pineapple for an upside down cake? If you give weights, as I did for the raspberry cakes, I try to overestimate so that no one is short. Sorry if this irritates but too much is better than too few. READ: Rose Prince's Baking Club: energy bars READ: Rose Prince's Baking Club: scones