There are few things more delicious than falling down a rabbit hole. No, don’t worry, I’m not serving up a second recipe for rabbit in a row. I mean discovering a recipe or dish which, not only have I not cooked or tried before, but haven’t even heard of. A little while ago, a reader asked me about Hawkshead cake, which Beatrix Potter used to make with her husband at Christmas. Hawkshead is the village Potter grew up in, in the Lake District, and the cake is actually more of a tart, made with puff pastry and filled with currants and syrup.

This is where the proverbial rabbit hole came in, because I couldn’t quite stop there. I then learned about the whole class of sticky currant cakes which come from the north-west, which include my own local Eccles cake, and the Chorley cake, but also the much lesser known Bolton flatcake, Lancashire tart and Hawkshead cake. All, it seems, are some variation on pastry (usually puffor shortcrust), currants and something sweet to bind them.

Both ginger and rum are used in abundance, so the tart thrums with spice and booze

Both ginger and rum are used in abundance, so the tart thrums with spice and booze

Finally, this culinary labyrinth led me to the Cumberland rum nicky, a shallow shortcrust pie with a filling of sliced dates, stem ginger, dark sugar, butter and rum. It has a pastry top, too, which can be latticed, or complete but with little holes poked into it to let the steam out........

© The Spectator