Chester Squares (Irish Gur Cake)

This cake is essentially bread pudding encased in pastry. It goes by many monikers, including donkey's wedding cake, Paddy's wedding cake, wacker's wedding cake, gudge, or donkey's gudge. In Ireland, where it has been a specialty of Dublin bakeries since the early twentieth century, it is most often called "gur cake." The name may derive from the Urdu word for jaggery (raw brown sugar loaves), or from the Irish slang word for street urchins, "gurrier." The cake also goes by the name "Chester cake," which would seem to suggest a relation with the town of that name, the county seat of Cheshire in England. That, in any case, is how it's sold at the historic Barron's Bakery (whose motto is "You can butter but you cannot better Barron's bread") in Cappoquin, County Waterford.

Chester Squares are like a combination between a vanilla slice and a Christmas mince pie. It has a spiced fruit filling wedged between two thick slices of pastry. A beloved bakery slice, Chester Squares or Gur Cake, is the king of cake leftovers. Mix stale bread, cake or pudding leftovers with sultanas and you have a sweet mincemeat filling crammed between two thick slices of pastry. Aside from mixing it all together and layering it in a tin to bake, there isn't much else that goes into this recipe. Its super adaptable to your tastes and what you have on hand, so we've included a bunch of variations to make it how you like.

8 slices white bread crusts removed, or 300 g of old cake or muffins
1 cup black tea, cold
2 sheets shortcrust pastry
4 Tbsp. self-raising flour
1½ cups sultanas or golden raisins (150 g)
⅓ cup golden syrup, or corn syrup (90 g)
1½ Tbsp. mixed spice or 2 tsp. cinnamon, ½ tsp. cloves, ½ tsp. nutmeg and ½ tsp. ginger

To Serve:
confectioners' sugar
custard sauce
icing

Remove crusts on bread and break up roughly into a large bowl. Add the cold black tea and tear apart the bread with a fork until it's combined and becomes like a stiff and pulpy porridge.

Add the self-raising flour, sultanas, golden syrup and mixed spice. Allow to sit for 30 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C/180°C fan, Gas Mark 6).

Line a square baking tin with one sheet of thawed shortcrust pastry, cut to size. Layer with the fruit filling and top with one more 'cut-to-fit' sheet of shortcrust pastry.

Poke holes in the top with a fork, and pop into the oven to bake for 45 minutes.

Once cooked, sit on the counter to cool, then cut into squares. Turn the cake out of the pan and cut into 4 slices.

Serve as is, or garnish with custard sauce or icing for an extra decadent slice.

Makes 4 servings.