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Liverpool Echo

National

Jess Molyneux

I made Liverpool's little known delicacy and it was not what I expected

the Liverpool ECHO

We already know Scouse is one of Liverpool's most famous dishes - but the city also boasts a little known historic delicacy still remembered by generations from their childhood.

The Liverpool ECHO recently took a look back at the Wet Nelly cake - a treat modelled after a Nelson cake, a traditional Lancashire fruit cake. According to Speke Hall, the Wet Nelly started out life as a bun loaf.

Now it might not sound the most appetising by its name, but for certain generations, it was a popular cake families made at home or could buy in bakeries across the city. When the bun loaf went stale, shopkeepers are said to have put it in the shop window, trickling treacle over it and the heat from the sun on the window would make the treacle run creating a wetter texture - hence the name Wet Nelly.

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It was sometimes made from the likes of compressed pastry remnants and dried fruit was later added to the whole mixture that was soaked in syrup. The Wet Nelly was once a cheaper substitute for wedding cake in Liverpool after WWII, seeing people ice it for decoration for the wedding celebrations.

As a result, it later became fondly known as 'Docker's Wedding Cake.' Sometimes served with custard or lemon, many remember this Scouse delicacy from their childhood by a different name, such as "bread pudding."

Wet Nelly recipe from Speke Hall (Speke Hall/National Trust)

We recently shared our readers' memories of the Wet Nelly, with one person commenting: "You haven’t lived if you haven’t baked Wet Nelly." So I decided to give it a whirl.

I'm not a complete stranger to baking and have made a few boiled fruit cakes in the past, so anticipated that this wouldn't be much different. I'm left-handed too so my cutting skills are questionable - but luckily this recipe required a small amount of that.

Following Speke Hall's traditional recipe, I had most of the ingredients already in, but headed out to buy a loaf of brown bread and mixed fruit. The recipe says to use stale brown bread, so I had to wait a while before I started.

I also didn't read the recipe too in advance and realised half the ingredients had to be left for four hours or overnight, but with the help of my family I managed to get it sorted without baking into the late hours of the night. The recipe looked straightforward, but my Wet Nelly skills probably doesn't reach the standards of Scousers who've been making them for years.

After leaving the bread package open for it to go stale, I cut off all the crusts as close to the edge as possible. I felt it was a waste leaving all the crusts off a full loaf, so would say that was my only criticism early on and it's best to find another use or recipe to put them into.

The first lot of ingredients left for four hours (Liverpool ECHO)

Cutting them - very awkwardly - into chunky squares, I stuck them in a bowl with 500g of mixed fruit, whilst the milk and butter slightly warmed up in the pan. Stirring the ingredients all together, the mixture looked really sloppy, as expected.

I could imagine the look of the Wet Nelly in the early stages would be enough to put some people off. I've never made a bread and butter pudding either so I'm not used to using ready made bread as a substitute for flour, but I guess I had to just trust the process.

It doesn't look the most appetising here - but stick with it (Liverpool ECHO)

I left the mixture rest for four hours, although Speke Hall suggests you can do this overnight. When the rest of the ingredients came into play, that's when I started to get more excited about the cake.

Adding three whisked eggs and the brown sugar to the mix, it was the mixed spice that brought a better smell to the recipe. After popping the mixture into a greased tin, I stuck it into the oven on the recommended heat for 75 minutues.

I'm a big fan of Christmas - and the Wet Nelly baking away reminded me of just that. The smell of warm cake with mixed spice wafted through the house and I could still smell it in the kitchen the next morning.

When the Wet Nelly was finished, I left it to cool and then cut it into big squares. The texture was springy and sticky to touch as expected and despite my lack of baking skills, it didn't look too dissimilar to photos I had seen.

If I were to bake a Wet Nelly again, I think I'd use a deeper lined tin - but that's more for the aesthetic. My Wet Nelly wasn't perfect, but it was also not what I expected.

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To me, when the Wet Nelly came out the oven, it smelt like Christmas (Liverpool ECHO)

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I tasted really nice and just like a fruit cake, like Christmas. A wholesome pud, I'll admit it was hard to get my head around the texture as it is, as expected, a wet cake.

I think it would be tastier warmed up with a bit of custard to add to it, or maybe a bit of alcohol inside perfect for the festive season. But it's definitely something I'd like to perfect and bake again.

Banana bread like in texture, I could see it being like a huge traybake served with school dinners. With Paul Hollywood's links to Merseyside, I reckon it would be boss to see this little known Liverpool delicacy made on the Great British Bake Off.

To find out more and visit Speke Hall, click here.

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