From
Eccles to… Amy Johnson?
The Colonial curiosity, “Amy Johnson Cake”, with a cake
layer above jam & currants on a pastry-like base, is perhaps a descendant
of Eccles Cakes, Bakewell Tarts, Banbury Cakes & Co.
In the great home-baking
days, when you weren’t a cook if you couldn’t produce a respectable cake at the
drop of a hat, it wasn’t unusual for cakes to be named after people who were in
the news. There were recipes for “Napoleon Cake”, “Queen Cakes” (for Queen Victoria),
and in Australia the now iconic “Lamingtons”, named for a Governor General of Queensland,
or possibly his wife, Lady Lamington, at the turn of the 19th century. So it wasn’t
altogether surprising to find “Amy Johnson Cake” in the Australian Calendar of Cakes, circa 1951.
** The original
Amy
Obviously the
reference is to the famous English pilot, Amy Johnson, who was the first woman
to fly solo from England to Australia, landing in Darwin on 24 May in 1930 (“Amy
Johnson”, Wikipedia).
So the recipe presumably dates from the
1930s, when Amy Johnson fever was at its height in Australia.
The cake is
distinguished by its double layer, the bottom being a pastry- or shortcake-like
dough and the top a cake with a sponge-like consistency. In between are currants
and jam (typically raspberry). A light lemon icing is applied.
Amy Johnson Cake
Rub 2 ozs. butter into 1 large cup S.R.
flour, sifted with a good pinch of salt. Mix to a firm dough with a little
milk. Roll out 1/4 in. thick and line a greased cake tin. Spread with raspberry
jam and sprinkle with 1/2 cup currants.
Then make a sponge mixture: Beat 2 eggs and
3/4 cup sugar till light and fluffy. Fold in 1 cup sifted S.R. flour and
finally 2 tablespoons butter melted in 3 tablespoons milk. Pour on top of
pastry.
Bake about 40 minutes in moderate oven. When
cold, ice with thin lemon-flavoured icing and sprinkle with cocoanut.
--MRS. NORM. IRISH (Mallala) and HILDA E. HANCOCK.
(Calendar
of Cakes. [4th ed.], Adelaide, South Australian Country Women's
Association, [1951?])
The original
cake?
Several people
have posted versions from original sources online: the recipes are quite consistent.
No-one seems to have found a really early version, however; the earliest reference
I could find on these sites was to “a league of mothers 1926-1951 cookery book”
with no citation given, on the New Zealand website, Foodlovers.
And no-one talks about the derivation of
the cake,
as opposed to the derivation of its name.
Where did the unusual combination of stiffer,
pastry-like bottom, currants and jam, and spongy cake top layer come from?
** Traditional,
with dried fruit
Unlike the
double layer effect, earlier examples of dried fruits in cakes and pies abound.
Using dried fruits (whether or not in mince-like mixtures as in mince pies)
plus a pastry-like dough was a popular tradition in English cookery over several
hundred years. The well-known Eccles Cakes and Banbury Cakes still feature the
combination, and in her English Food (first
published London, Macmillan, 1974) Jane Grigson gives us a Cumberland Currant Cake
which does, too; but the Amy Johnson Cake’s spongy cake topping doesn’t seem to
be traditional.
“I’m the famous
Eccles”
“Eccles” doesn’t
mean the character of The Goon Show (sadly!) It’s a town in Lancashire,
England, now part of Greater Manchester.
Here’s
Jane Grigson on Eccles Cakes:
Eccles Cakes
1
lb shortcrust pastry made with lard;
Filling:
4 oz currants; 1 oz chopped candied peel;
1/2
teaspoonful each allspice and nutmeg;
2
oz sugar; 1 oz butter
Plus:
egg white and extra sugar
Roll out the pastry and cut into circles
about 4" round. Mix currants, peel and spices. Put the sugar and butter
into a small pan. When they are melted, mix in the currants, etc., and heat
through. Leave until cold, then put a spoonful into the centre of each pastry
round. Draw the circles together, pinching the edges over the filling. Turn
them over, then press gently with a rolling pin to flatten the cakes. Make a
hole in the centre. Brush over with egg white, sprinkle with sugar, and bake at
mark 7, 425° [F], for 15 minutes.
(Jane Grigson. English Food. Harmondsworth, England, Penguin, 1977) (First
published London, Macmillan, 1974)
You’ll find
more a detailed version of Eccles Cakes at BBC Good Food,
Ride a cock
horse to Banbury Cross?
Banbury Cakes
are very similar, enclosing the filling in pastry; in fact Jane Grigson (op. cit.) uses the same fruity filling
with extra butter, cinnamon and rum. They’re made in the same way but are oval
in shape.
From Cumberland:
more currants and pastry
Today in Australia
we might call “Cumberland Currant Cake” a slice: two layers of pastry, sandwiching
a dried fruit and apple mixture flavoured with rum, rather like a mince pie mixture;
baked as a whole in a square or oblong pan, then cut up into squares, and eaten
hot as a dessert, or cold.
Read it in full, with pics, on “Neil Cooks
Grigson”.
Such pastry and dried fruit offerings
apparently typify what the English would consider recipes from the “north”, according
to Jane Grigson, who writes:
“Growing and
storing apples and pears becomes more difficult as you go north. Perhaps this
is why dried fruit pies, such as sly cake, Eccles cakes and these Cumberland
squares are not just Christmas food, as mince pies tend to be further south. …
In the north-east, certainly up to the last war, we would eat this kind of
thing. We loved it [Cumberland Currant Cake], and called it squashed fly cake,
and giggled in a comer, while the family talked. No-one realized that they were
eating a cake with a history, and mediaeval ancestors.” (English Food, op. cit.,
p.258-9)
Well, to us in the Antipodes the whole of Britain
is north, but with London the centre of the universe, areas past Oxford were
pretty well Outer Woop-Woop. The attitude predates the railway, but even as the
iron horse revolutionised British travel Elizabeth Gaskell’s North and South portrayed the traditional
prejudice of the southerners.
This sort of flat, closed dried fruit pie
is an ancestor of the “squashed fly biscuits” (or “fly cemeteries”) that were
available commercially in New Zealand around 1960. The thinnest layers
imaginable of a flour and water dough, sandwiching very, very flattened
raisins. I remember eating them when we lived in Bayswater, on Auckland’s North
Shore, but not in the early days, in the 1950s—though that could have been a
matter of poverty. Possibly Dad thought his brilliant name for them (which Mum
didn’t like) was original: if so, he was wrong. His grandfather’s family was definitely
from the “north” so maybe the nickname was older than the horrid bought biscuits…?
These sorts of traditional English recipes demonstrate
fairly well one strand of the origin of the Amy Johnson Cake: the currant layer
on the pastry. What about the rest of it?
** Pastry base,
with cake-like topping
The self-raising
flour (readymade flour and baking-powder mixture) of the Amy Johnson Cake’s top
layer can’t date back all that far, because baking powder only came in in the
middle of the 19th century. “A really effective raising powder was developed in
America in the mid-1850s” (Jane Grigson, op.cit.).
By 1861 we find Mrs Beeton using “Borwick’s German baking-powder” in her “Good
Holiday Cake.” Before that cakes were made light with whipped egg whites.
However, similar topping mixtures are to be
found with pastry bases in a variety of more traditional English offerings.
They may be called cakes, tarts or puddings, some of the names still surviving
today, but they’re all more or less versions of pies or tarts, with a pastry
bottom, varying from puff pastry to a shortcake mixture in the more modern
recipes.
Bakewell? Minus
the currants
The combination
of jam, cake and pastry or shortcake layers, minus the currants, turns up today
in a variety of offerings labelled “Bakewell.” This recipe from Mary Berry is—I
was going to say “typical.” She’s such a superb cook that in fact it’s probably
the best!
Bakewell Slices
Be generous with the raspberry jam—it makes
all the difference. As the shortcrust pastry contains a lot of fat and no
sugar, there is no need to line the tin with non-stick baking parchment.
Makes 24
For the shortcrust pastry:
175g
(6oz) plain flour; 75g (3oz) butter
For the sponge mixture:
100g
(4oz) butter, softened; 100g (4oz) caster
sugar;
175g
(6oz) self-raising flour; 1 level tsp
baking powder;
2 large
eggs; 2 tbsp milk; 1/2 tsp almond extract
To finish:
About
4 tbsp raspberry jam; flaked almonds, for sprinkling
To make the pastry, measure the flour into a
bowl and rub in the butter with your fingertips until the mixture resembles
fine breadcrumbs. Add 2–3 tablespoons cold water gradually, mixing to form a
soft dough.
Preheat the oven to 180°C/fan 160°C/gas 4.
Roll the dough out on a lightly floured work surface and use it to line a
30x23cm (12x9in) traybake or roasting tin.
Measure all the sponge ingredients into a
bowl and beat until well blended. Spread the pastry with raspberry jam and then
top with the sponge mixture. Sprinkle with the flaked almonds.
Bake in the preheated oven for about 25 minutes
or until the cake has shrunk from the sides of the tin and springs back when
pressed in the centre with your fingertips. Leave to cool in the tin and then
cut into slices.
(Mary Berry. From her My Kitchen Table: 100 Sweet Treats and Puds. The Happy Foodie)
The website
tells us that this is “the ultimate recipe for Bakewell slices. The combination
of crunchy biscuit base, sweet jam and rich almond sponge is irresistible.”
As you can see from the picture, this is
very like Amy Johnson Cake: the base is a rather different texture and it lacks
the currants, but otherwise, it’s very close.
So does this mean that the traditional
English “Bakewell” recipes, variously for “Bakewell Tart/s” or “Bakewell
Pudding” are the direct ancestor of Amy Johnson Cake?
The jury has to remain out on that one, because
these delicious “Bakewell Slices” aren’t necessarily “Bakewell” at all.
The real Bakewell?
If we follow
Jane Grigson’s dicta in English Food,
Mary Berry’s recipe wouldn’t be “Bakewell” at all. Or at least, not Bakewell Tart.
That almond flavouring wouldn’t be there. Mrs Grigson writes:
“Commercially-produced Bakewell tarts often
contain ground almonds which is quite wrong. The real filling is a rich custard
of butter and eggs, which is closer to the mirliton
tarts made at Rouen than to English almond tarts. This recipe was a speciality
of the inn at Bakewell when Jane Austen stayed...”
This is her version of the real thing:
Bakewell Tart
8
oz weight rich shortcrust pastry
Filling:
strawberry
jam; 4 oz butter; 4 oz sugar;
4
egg yolks; 3 egg whites
Roll out the pastry and line one large tart
tin or several small patty pans. Spread the pastry with jam. Melt the butter
(the flavour will be even more delicious if you allow it to cook to a golden
brown), then mix it boiling hot with the sugar and egg yolks and whites which
have been beaten together in a bowl. Put this mixture over the pastry. Bake at
mark 6-7, 400-425°, for 20-30 minutes until lightly browned. Eat immediately.
(Jane Grigson. English Food. Harmondsworth, England, Penguin, 1977)
Here we have
the three layers: pastry, jam, and topping, but the topping is nothing like that
of the Amy Johnson Cake, nor, indeed, that of Mary Berry’s slices.
The rivals: Bakewell
Pudding or Bakewell Tart?
Apparently
Bakewell “tarts” and Bakewell “pudding” are rivals in Britain today. There’s a whole
article about it on the Gastro Obscura website: “Bakewell Pudding”,
by Alan P. Newman.
“Bakewell pudding is said to have been
invented following a culinary accident in the mid-19th century at the White
Horse Inn (now the Rutland Arms Hotel) in Bakewell, England. As the story goes,
a cook failed to follow instructions and spread the egg-and-almond paste on top
of a pastry base instead of mixing it in. The result was a hit, and has become
a signature treat of the Derbyshire town.
“Bakewell
pudding is essentially a puff pastry with jam-covered base that gets overlaid
with a filling of egg and ground almonds. …
“Importantly,
it should never be confused with the more well-known Bakewell tart, which has a
jam-covered shortcut pastry base, a sponge filling, and sometimes icing on top.
[Clearly, the Mary Berry “Bakewell” style.] These can be found everywhere in
the United Kingdom, as they are commonly mass-produced.”
Newman’s photo, above, shows us that in
appearance the modern Bakewell Pudding is far closer to Jane Grigson’s Bakewell
Tart than to Mary Berry’s Bakewell Slices or the Amy Johnson Cake. However,
according to Mrs Grigson the ground almonds are an anachronism.
Mrs Beeton: Bakewell
with almonds
I don't know how
far back Jane Grigson was going and whether she was intending to distinguish
her “tart” from the “pudding”, but the almonds were certainly there over a
hundred years before she published English
Food. Mrs Beeton gives us two versions. You’ll note that she calls the dish
a “Pudding”, as is the usage in Derbyshire today, according to Dr Newman, though
with its pastry base it is clearly a pie. The usage was quite common at this
period and crops up in several of Isabella’s recipes.
BAKEWELL PUDDING.
(Very Rich.)
I
1242. INGREDIENTS.—1/4 1b. of puff-paste, 5
eggs, 6 oz. of sugar, 1/4 lb. of butter, 1 oz. of almonds, jam
Mode.—Cover a dish with thin paste, and put
over this a layer of any kind of jam, 1/2 inch thick; put the yolks of 5 eggs
into a basin with the white of 1, and beat these well; add the sifted sugar, the
butter, which should be melted, and the almonds, which should be well pounded;
beat all together until well mixed, then pour it into the dish over the jam,
and bake for an hour in a moderate oven.
Time.—1 hour. Average
cost, 1s. 6d.
Sufficient for 4 or 6 persons. Seasonable
at any 6me.
II.
1243. INGREDIENTS.—3/4 pint of bread crumbs,
1 pint of milk, 4 eggs, 2 oz. of sugar, 3 oz. of butter, 1 oz. of pounded
almonds, jam
Mode.—Put the bread crumbs at the bottom of a pie-dish, then
over them a layer of jam of any kind that may be preferred; mix the milk and
eggs together; add the sugar, butter, and pounded almonds; beat fill [sic] well
together, pour it into the dish, and bake in a moderate oven for 1 hour.
Time.—1 hour. Average
cost. 1s. 3d. to 1s. 6d.
Sufficient for 4 or 5 persons. Seasonable
at any time.
(Isabella Beeton. The Book of Household Management. [London], S.O. Beeton, 1861.)
** Jam today: spongy
topping, pastry base
I was thrilled
to discover Mrs Beeton’s Bakewell recipes: finding a mid-19th century version with the almonds was kind of doing Jane Grigson
in the eye (much though I love her books). But this still didn't get us to the
spongy topping, did it?
So what I did, folks—I was recovering from
a plumbing disaster that happened on New Year’s Eve—well, a double one, really:
there was an extra one on New Year’s Day, but only the first one caused a real
flood. (Yes, the plumbers came, early afternoon of the 31st, and then to really
complete the job, including installing a new water heater, on the 2nd, bless
them.) Anyway, as I say, I was recovering from that, and the mind wanted to
just settle down peacefully and go into browsing mode… So I read through all
Mrs Beeton’s recipes for cakes, pastries and puddings—in my downloaded PDF version
they’re in different volumes, what’s more.
And gee, this is what I found! The Great Plumbing
Juju in the Sky was smiling upon me once more!
MANCHESTER PUDDING
(to eat Cold).
1300. INGREDIENTS.—3 oz. of grated bread, 1/2
pint of milk, a strip of lemon-peel, 4 eggs, 2 oz. of butter, sugar to taste,
puff-paste, jam, 3 tablespoonfuls of brandy.
Mode.—Flavour the milk with lemon-peel, by infusing it in the
milk for 1/2 hour; then strain it on to the bread crumbs, and boil it for 2 or
3 minutes; add the eggs, leaving out the whites of 2, the butter, sugar, and
brandy; stir all these ingredients well together, cover a pie-dish with
puff-paste, and at the bottom put a thick layer of any kind of jam; pour the
above mixture, cold, on the jam, and bake the pudding for an hour. Serve cold,
with a little sifted sugar sprinkled over.
Time.—1 hour. Average cost, 1s. Sufficient
for 5 or 6 persons.
Seasonable at any time.
(Isabella Beeton. The Book of Household Management. [London], S.O. Beeton, 1861, Chapter
XXVII. “Puddings and Pastry Recipes”)
It’s not a
cake dough topping, but the thickened mixture with the breadcrumbs does clearly
establish it as an ancestor of the sort of technique that was to result in the Amy
Johnson Cake, nearly 70 years later.
So
there you are. The Amy Johnson Cake’s currants and pastry-like base derive from
the tradition to which Eccles Cakes, Banbury Cakes and Bakewell puddings or
tarts belong, and the jam and the cake-like topping, which resurface in the
modern “Bakewell” recipes, derive from the sort of pastry-based “pudding” that was
being baked in England by 1861. The absence of any rising agent does suggest
that Mrs Beeton’s recipe is much earlier than 1860-ish, too.
And Manchester?
Definitely from “the north!” Those Eccles Cakes are just down the road, waving
hopefully at it and calling: “Hullo! I’m the famous Eccles! Add a currant or
two!”
… No, don’t ask why the Australian
cooks thought fit to honour Amy Johnson with this cake!
