Peter Brears, in his excellent book, ‘Traditional Food in Yorkshire’, cites a 19th Century source: W. Howitt, The Rural Life of England’ (1840). Howitt had written how local people in the Yorkshire Dales could make:
… in a wonderful short time … those delicious little kettle-cakes, or as they call them, sad-cakes, made of pastry thickly doted with currants.
These cakes, however, were certainly not just confined to Yorkshire, and similar recipes can be found across Northern England.
- 10 oz/280g plain flour
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- Pinch of salt
- 4 oz/113 g lard
- ¼ pint/150 ml/5 fl oz milk
- 1 oz/28 g each of sugar and currents
- Sift the flour, baking powder and salt and rub in the lard.
- Mix in the milk and make a dough
- Divide the dough into three and form each into a round ball with a hole in the centre
- Fill with the mixed sugar and currants
- Cover over the hole with surrounding dough and roll out to ½ inch/ 1 cm thick. Cut into rounds.
- Bake at 200°C/400° F, gas mark 6, for 15-20 minutes.