Today I’m bringing you a recipe which you’ll either love or hate, there is honestly no in-between on it. Today I’m showing you how to make lardy cake (or you may know it as lardy bread).
If you haven’t ever heard of lardy cake, well I’ll tell you what it is. It’s a layered bread which has a sweet lard and dried fruit filling. If you like the smell/taste of lard, then this is the treat for you. I personally don’t like it, as the smell and taste is just not for me, but if you like consistency and ‘sticks to the roof of your mouth’ feel to it, then feel free to make yourself a batch.
As mentioned above, this is made with lard, which for me personally is a big no-no. This is quite a traditional recipe, it’s not so popular here in the Midlands but in the south and south west it’s still pretty popular and can be purchased from shops there.
If lard isn’t you thing, you can make this with butter but it isn’t really then a lardy cake, it’s a butter version.
Anyway, let’s get started, shall we?
Ingredients:
Dough:
500g Strong white bread flour.
8g Salt.
55g Fresh yeast.
50g Light brown sugar.
50g Lard.
275ml Water, warmed.
Filling:
250g Lard.
250g Light brown sugar.
200g Mixed dried fruit.
Glaze:
200g Granulated sugar.
200ml Water.
Methods:
Before you get into the recipe, you should do some prep work. Start by weighing up all your ingredients, lining your 8×8 inch square tin with some parchment and getting any equipment you may need ready, such as a stand mixer and spatula.
To start on the dough, grab your mixing bowl and place in the strong white bread flour, along with the salt and give it a mi until they are fully incorporated.
Then you can go ahead and add in the yeast, light brown sugar, lard and water and mix on a medium-low speed until a clear dough forms, this will normally be achieved after about 5-6 minutes of mixing (using a dough hook).
Flour your work surface with a small amount of bread flour and give the dough a brief knead, just until its smooth and elastic.
Now you can take the dough and place it into a lightly oiled bowl and cover with clingfilm. Leave it somewhere to proof for around 60 minutes or until well proofed up.
While your dough is proofing, you can make the sweet lardy filling.
Grab a clean mixing bowl and into it place the lard and light brown sugar, then beat them together until they are lighter and fluffier in colour and consistency.
Once you’ve achieved that, you can give the bowl a good scraping down, just to incorporate any bits that haven’t been fully worked in.
Once your dough is ready, you can knock it back. This is simply the processor removing the gases that have built up in the dough during the first proof. Once knocked back bring back into a ball of dough.
Next, you can roll the dough out to be 30cm x 18cm, it’ should be rectangular in shape. You may notice that the dough keeps springing back to its original shape while you’re rolling it out – this is normal and shows that the gluten has developed. Be persistent and you’ll achieve it in the end, use a little more force if you’re struggling.
Now you can add all of your lard mixture on top of the dough and spread it out to get as consistent level as possible, I find using a small cranked/offset palette knife works really well. Then you can scatter the mixed dried fruit on top of the dough.
This is where it gets interesting. You’ll want to give the dough a book fold, rotate it 90˚ so the middle fold has gone from vertical to horizontal and give it 1 half turn.
Pin the dough so it fits your 8×8 inch cake tin, which has been lined. you may need to pin it into the corners but it should fit pretty snugly.
Cut into the dough using a scotch scraper so you end up with 16 equally sized squares.
Cover the lardy cake and leave to proof up for around 30-45 minutes or until well proofed up. Now is the ideal time to make the glaze that goes on top of the cake once it’s baked.
To make the syrup, place the sugar and water into a saucepan and place on the hob over a medium-high heat and allow it to come to a boil, once thats achieved and the mixture has achieved a thicker consistency, you can take it off the heat and leave it until its needed later on – also preheat your oven to 210˚c/410˚f.
Once the second proof is done, you can then remove the cling film and lace straight into your preheated oven and bake for 15-20 minuets or until it’s a golden brown colour.
Now its out of the oven, grab your syrup you made earlier on and generously brush it over the top of the lardy cake.
Then scatter over some granulated sugar.
That’s all you can do until later. Once cooled down fully, you can go ahead and cut it up, where the lard has soaked through it’s quite dense and sticks to the roof of your mouth.
That’s all for today guys, I hope you enjoyed. If you did, don’t forget to share this recipe with your family and friends and enjoy it. I’ll be back soon with another blog post and YouTube video, so join me then. In the meanwhile, don’t forget to check out my Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. The YouTube video will be linked down below.
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