Dales' Cake

On the blog today, a recipe that was born out of inspiration from the cakes of the Yorkshire Dales and filled with an exotic Jam that was made in the Derbyshire Dales. Let me fill you in on this stirring recipe. 

Change is all round us. As inevitable as taxes and the way the longer days give way to shorter ones, different weather and the plants producing crops that reflect the change in the seasons each year. This recipe was inspired by that process as it contained ingredients that are more commonly found in the Fall Season and serve as comfort food during those days when colder weather and darker evenings become commonplace. 

As always, there was music on the player. Today we were going quite old school but in some ways looking to the future too with the latest release by seminal Manchester Band The Chameleons. Their music could properly be classed as the missing link between the bleak, beautiful post-punk gravity of Joy Division and the bright guitar pop with dark and sardonic lyrics of the Smiths.

The Chameleons' last album was released in 2001 and before that they produced records in 1983, 1985 and 1986 with the odd EP and live record thrown in. The new release, Arctic Moon, which was preceded by an EP earlier in the year, features the classic Chameleon traits of attention to sonic detail in the guitar department, considered lyrics and new musical experiments. In other words it is outwardly something fresh and new but beneath the surface it is in every way the band we all know and love. The same could be said for my life; apparent changes on the face of things don't take away from the fact that, for those who choose to understand, underneath that is same the person they have always known and is now hoping to be a better version of what came before.

So the ingredients for today's recipe, which is a cake. They are as follows:

For the sponge

3 beaten Eggs that are medium sized. 

3 tablespoons of treacle. 

4 ounces of Caster Sugar

2 ounces of Ground Ginger.

8 ounces of Self-Raising Flour.

8 ounces part melted, Salted Butter. A good trick is to put the butter near a warm window for a short time to soften it up to the consistency of margarine. 

For the filling

Quince Jam. 

Method

1. Cream the Butter and Sugar together until you get a fluffy mixture that looks like the Butter has grown hair. 

2. Add the Eggs and Treacle and stir them into the mixture. 

3. Add the Flour and the Ginger and mix until a thick paste is created. 

4. Grease two cake tins and put half the mixture in each. 

5. Cook in the oven on Gas Mark 4 for 30 minutes or until putting a skewer into the cake brings it out clean. 

6. Put the two pieces of cake out onto a wire rack and leave to cool.

7. Spread a large amount of the Quince Jam onto one side of the cake and put the other on the top to create a sandwich.

The cake tasted of something different but with a familiar sweetness. The Quince Jelly gave it the sweet and savoury taste of traditional Fall recipes as did the addition of the Treacle and Ginger also. The cake proved a real hit with an old friend I was blessed to reunite with after some years and workmates who have a warmth that matters.