Be invited for a cup of tea and a slice of cake and you are likely to find cupcakes, muffins or fruit cake. Mention that you would like to try Lardy cake and you are likely to be met with gasps of horror from the health brigade. Lardy cake is being replaced in shops with other "healthier" treats baked with lower fat margarines and filled with synthetic cream. It could soon exist only in nostalgic memories.
Lardy cake is made using bread dough layered with pig’s fat, and studded with dried fruits such as currants and raisins. It is dense, sweet and, as you would expect, greasy. In his book Eating for England (Harper Perennial, 2007) food writer Nigel Slater describes that eating it is “as comforting as hugging a well-padded aunt”. But how did it all begin?
The History of Lardy Cake
Lardy cake, otherwise known as Lardy bread, was thought to have originated in the great pig-farming counties of Wiltshire and Oxfordshire. It is unclear when it was first mentioned, but almost certainly was conceived as a way to use up everything from an animal – and pig’s fat has been historically cheaper than butter. The cake consists of flour, lard, sugar, spices, currants and raisins, all economical and easily-found ingredients.
The making of Lardy cake peaked at a time when a day’s work meant hard physical labour. Harvesting, ploughing, animal-rearing and other forms of manual work burnt up large amounts of calories. Workers needed something sustaining to tuck into their lunch bag and Lardy cake proved to be the answer. The fat content of Lardy cake varies greatly, but a supermarket lardy cake recently launched by Waitrose contained 166 calories per slice. In that slice there was also 6.6g fat. To make Lardy cake in the traditional way, one recipe even urges the cook to turn the cake upside-down after baking so all the fat that has dribbled out of the cake can then ooze back inside it.
With all its cholesterol, saturated fat and sugar, it could be argued that Lardy cake belongs to a world that no longer needs huge amounts of fat and sugar to sustain a day’s hard physical labour. While many of us have occupations that do not require a lot of physical strain, we still regard cakes and pastries as more of an everyday food rather than something to be eaten as a treat. We therefore look for low-fat options for our baking. We are a world that shuns fat, and opts instead for low-calorie food. Our butter is low-fat, we have sweeteners to replace sugar and the thought of layering pure animal lard over a cake makes people recoil in horror. And yet anyone who has ever tasted the sweet doughy cake for themselves will want to eat it again. If you see a piece of lardy cake available, then do try it (if diet allows). It may not be around for too much longer.
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