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The Bakewell Pudding
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Bakewell claims to be the home of the authentic Bakewell Pudding and many believe it to originally come from the Rushbottom Lane district.
It seems clear that the recipe was originally something of an accident, the result of a misunderstanding between Mrs Graves,
Mistress of the Inn, and her cook. Visiting noblemen ordered strawberry tart, but the cook, instead of stirring the egg mixture into
the pastry, spread it on top of the jam.
The result was so successful that a Mrs Wilson, wife of a Tallow Chandler who lived in the cottage now known as the Old Original Bakewell
Pudding Shop where candles were made, saw the possibility of making the puddings for sale and obtained the so-called recipe and commenced
in a business of her own. Recipes still made there consists of a puff pastry shell with a layer of jam, covered with a filling of eggs,
sugar, butter and almonds. This dish is said to be an accidental invention of the 1860s, which occurred when a nobleman visiting the
White Horse Inn (now called The Rutland Arms) at Bakewell ordered strawberry tart.
The cook, instead of stirring the egg mixture into
the cake, spread it on top of the jam. However, this claim is almost certainly spurious, as the pudding was by then already well-known,
and its antecedents can be traced back to medieval times.
A Bakewell tart is a traditional English baked dessert tart or cake consisting of a shortcrust pastry shell, spread with jam and covered
with a sponge-like filling enriched with ground almonds (know as Frangipane). They may also be covered with nuts such as almonds and
peanuts. Alternative flavours, including blackcurrant, strawberry and apple are also produced.
A Cherry Bakewell is small cake, covered with a top layer of icing and a single central half-cherry, also known as a Bakewell Cake.
To some extent, the terms cake and tart are used interchangeably, though most insist the names are recipe specific. Recipes abound,
for example those given by Ben Mathews (1839), Eliza Acton (1845), K Morgan , M Bates and Mrs Beeton (1861), and modern commercial
examples are to be found in most cake shops and on every supermarket shelf. The name only became common in the 20th Century; the dish
was previously known as Bakewell Pudding.
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