Yorkshire Sly Cake (Dried Fruit & Nut Pie)

Yorkshire Sly Cake (Dried Fruit & Nut Pie) is a delicious, and traditional bake from Yorkshire and the North East of England.

An Adapted Old Vintage Be-Ro Recipe

I’ve finally made a Yorkshire Sly Cake (Dried Fruit & Nut Pie), sometimes called squashed fly or fly cemetery pie, according to my Yorkshire husband!

It’s a lovely pie that originates from Yorkshire and the North East of England, similar to a Cumberland Rum Nicky, but with a pastry lid.

There’s a recipe in a couple of my old vintage BeRo cookbooks, where they suggest puff pastry with mincemeat.

However, I’ve used homemade shortcrust pastry with a mixture of dried fruits and nuts, in today’s recipe, which gives a fabulous texture, as well as taste.

There are a few recipes online, and in old Yorkshire cookbooks I have; but in the end I followed a recipe I found here: Sly Cake

Here’s what “Baker Mike” says, who shared the recipe on the Traditonal Yorkshire Recipes websire and in the Keighley News:

“Sly cake goes deep back into are Yorkshire baking heritage and can have variations of filling around the West Riding, such as dates, figs and walnuts. Traditionally dark squashy dried fruits were used like currant and sultanas being sweetened with sugar and butter and baked in an old dinner plate.”

But, why Sly Cake? Legend says, and again Mike explains, that a baker’s daughter called Margaret fell in love with a man who lived on her street.

She smuggled love letters into cakes that she gave him when he bought something from her father’s shop.

Thus the cakes that carried the hidden love letters are fittingly called sly cakes, even though it’s a pie!

Other theories are based on the word “sly” in the Yorkshire dialect, meaning “secret”. It’s thought that on looking at the pie, it’s just a double crust pie – so, quite ordinary.

But, on slicing into it, the rich buttered fruit and nut filling is revealed, and so the secret is revealed as a rather luxurious pie.

But back to today’s recipe for Yorkshire Sly Cake (Dried Fruit & Nut Pie). Although you will see “squares” of this recipe in Baker’s shops, usually made with just currants.

At home, a Sly Cake is traditionally baked on an enamel pie plate or even on an old dinner plate, as my grandmother used to use for her pies.

I hope you enjoy this recipe as much as we do, and the best way to serve it, is just warm with thick cream, pouring cream or custard.

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More Yorkshire Recipes

• Yorkshire Farmhouse Fruit Cake
• Yorkshire Quarter – Yorkshire Rock Cake
• Yorkshire Curd Tart

• Traditional Yorkshire Parkin
• Yorkshire Teacakes Recipe
• Betty’s Fat Rascals Recipe

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Homemade Shortcrust Pastry Recipe and Tips

• In place of currants and sultanas, use mixed dried fruit.
• Add mixed peel, for a citrus taste, about 25g, in step 1,
• Use mincemeat in place of the dried fruits, as my Be-Ro cookbook suggests, and Puff Pasry for a flakier pie finish.
• Bakers usually just add a currant filling – as in step 1, but with 425g currants. Bake it in a square or obling baking tray, mark the top with diamond shapes before baking as in step 4.
• For homemade shortcrust pastry follow this recipe:
• 340g SR flour (12 ozs)
• 160g butter (6 ozs)
• cold water (to mix, about 30ml)
• pinch of salt
• 1. Mix flour and salt in basin, rub in the butter until it resembles fine breadcrumbs.
• 2. Using a knife to cut and stir, mix with cold water to form a stiff dough. Do not over mix, light of hand is best.
• 3. Allow pastry dough to chill and “relax” for 30 minutes, in a fridge or a cool place, cover the bowl or put the pastry in some cling film.

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Recipe for Yorkshire Sly Cake (Dried Fruit & Nut Pie)