Lardy cake

Recently a friend asked me to let her know if I ever made a Lardy Cake.
I knew it was a speciality of the southwest as I had seen it in the shops when I spent a year in Gloucester back in the 70's.  I had never tried it - back then they looked greasy and unappetising.
But, I am always up for a challenge so I started looking for recipes.
Like any traditional dish, there seemed to be as many variations as there are cooks who make it.  No doubt the exact ingredients would vary according to the situation. When times were hard, very little fruit would be used but in easier times the fruity filling more generous. Some recipes mixed the fruit in the dough, others scattered it on the dough before folding. Some even dispensed with the one ingredient that I would think essential -- lard -- and replaced it with beef dripping -- or in modern versions with butter! And although always called a cake, it is actually more of a spiced bread as it is made with a yeast dough.
So, after comparing several recipes, I decided to base my first attempt on a recipe in a book I have had on my shelf for many years: Farmhouse Cookery published by Readers Digest in 1980.

Ingredients:

1 lb strong white flour

1 tsp salt

1 oz lard

2 oz sugar

1 pkt dried yeast

1/2 pint warm milk

12 oz mixed fruit

Filling:

4 oz lard

4 oz light muscavado sugar

1 tsp mixed spice

Rub the lard into the flour and mix in the salt, sugar and yeast. Mix in the milk to form a dough. Turn out and knead well. Put back in bowl and set in a warm place for about half an hour to rise.

Mix in the dried fruit and let rise for another 10 minutes before rolling out into a rectangle.

Mix all the filling ingredients together, then spread half of it onto 2/3 of your rectangle.

Fold the unspread third over.

Fold the remaining third over, and roll out into a large rectangle again.

Repeat the spreading and folding with the rest of the filling.

At this point, my recipe gave two choices. Either roll it out into a rectangle again and then roll up like a swiss roll. Cut the resulting roll in half and put each in a well greased 6" round cake tin, cut side uppermost.

I decided to go with the second option -- rolling it out to fit a small roasting tin.

Leave to rise for another 40 minutes before baking at 190 deg C for 30 - 35 minutes.

The resulting "cake" looked nothing like I remembered, but certainly tasted good! A bit hot-cross-bunnish and not greasy at all :)

I don't know how authentic it is -- I am still waiting for a report back from my friend who took half of it away with her to try!

Next time I will try the "swiss roll" method as I think that is more like I remember from years ago.