Day 198
July 17, 2010It’s Saturday so we start a new theme today. Water seems a good option for the next week.
The Peak District town of Bakewell entertained us for a couple of hours. The River Wye is the major river of the western part of the Peak, rising on Axe Edge above Buxton (as do the Rivers Dove and Manifold, all within the space of a few kilometres) and flowing eastwards through Buxton and Bakewell to join the Derwent at Rowsley.
Bakewell claims to be the home of the authentic Bakewell Pudding and many believe it to originally come from the Rushbottom Lane district.
It is claimed 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. 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
Continuing the story…. 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. ..
It is a contention of local history that the secret recipe for the Bakewell Pudding was left by Mrs. Greaves in her will to a Mr. Radford. In turn Mr. Radford passed the recipe on to Mr. Bloomer. There is still a Bloomers Shop in Bakewell that makes and sells Bakewell Puddings.
As with any traditional recipe, there are bound to be many different versions, especially if the original recipe is a well guarded secret
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