A Cumberland Rum Nicky pie in the true sense contains sticky dates with rum and stem ginger. My version is more child friendly as it contains apples and apple juice, and served alongside a toffee sauce for extra deliciousness!
I took a gamble baking ahead of tonights Great British Bake Off, because having only seen the preview of this weeks episode at the end of last weeks, it was hard to determine exactly what bakes were going to be featured tonight in the Forgotten Bakes theme. Having turned to my fellow #gbbobloggers2017 , we think we identified two of tonights bakes and one ‘could be’ a Cumberland Nicky. I made different version without any alcohol , hence a Cumberland No Rum Nicky.
My version is based on a Paul Hollywood recipe which I found where googling what on earth a Cumberland Nicky actually was/is. I discovered this:
This traditional northern treat is stuffed with sticky dates and treacly brown sugar and laced with ginger and rum. ‘Nicky’ may stem from the original technique of covering the filling with a whole piece of pastry then making slashes or ‘nicks’ in it.
Now My boys do to like pies due to them to liking pastry. However, I hoped that if I substituted some of the ingredients to make it more child friendly, they *might* at least try a slice. Hmmmmm…..well anyway lets get back to the bake itself.
Therefore, to make this more child friendly, I filled my pie with dates as per the recipe, apples, ground ginger instead of stem ginger, no apricots at all (extra apples) and apple juice in place of rum.
I did not use Paul’s pastry recipe, I opted for a more basic sweet shortcrust pastry instead.
I also did not make my lattice topping in the same way – mainly because I did to read the recipe method in its entirety *ahem*. But I think it looked ok despite this.
I sprinkled some brown sugar o the pastry to add some extra sweetness, but I have not included this in my recipe because actually the filling is sweet enough and does not need this extra topping.
The filling is all gooey and brown and sticky. Unfortunately, my pastry bottom did not survive when dished up as it kind of broke away from the filing and was a little messy when dished up! Whoops!
No real structure to the pie – I think my pastry was very crumbly to be honest, and my filling too wet.
I decided to pour a homemade toffee sauce over my Cumberland Nicky too. Now in Paul Hollywood’s version, he serves the pie alongside some rum butter. Because my filling is a little like a sticky toffee apple pudding, I thought a sticky toffee sauce would complete it well. I think it did at least. I did serve this later with ice cream too with really worked well.
Here is the recipe for this almost Cumberland No Rum Nicky :
- *for the sweet shortcrust pastry*
- 225g plain flour
- 100g salted butter diced
- 50g icing sugar
- 1 egg, beaten
- water - enough to bind the ingredients together
- *for the pie filling*
- 225g dates, coarsely chopped
- 150g bramley apples, peeled and chopped into cubes
- 50ml apple juice
- 50g soft dark brown sugar
- 1 tsp ground ginger
- 50g unsalted butter, cut into 1–2cm cubes
- *for the toffee sauce*
- *For the toffee sauce*
- 120ml double cream
- 55g butter
- 25g light brown sugar
- 1 tbsp golden syrup
- 1 tbsp black treacle
- *to make the pastry*
- I used a food processor but of course you can make this by hand using the rubbing in method
- Sift the flour into the food processor, add the butter, icing sugar and egg and about 2 tbsp cold water Turn on the food processor and watch the mixture bind and come together, away from the sides, to make a dough. If you need more water add 1 tbsp at a time.
- Wrap the dough in cling film and chill in the fridge for at least 30 mins while preparing the filling.
- Preheat the oven to 180C/160oC
- Once the dough has rested, cut it into two pieces, roughly ⅓ and ⅔.
- Roll out the larger piece on a lightly floured work surface. Line a 20cm/8in pie dish with the pastry, leaving any excess pastry hanging over the edge.
- Now add your filling ingredients
- Roll out the remaining pastry and cut it into nine long strips, roughly 1cm wide. Now add these strips to the top of the pie filling to create a lattice effect. Use a pastry brush dipped into water as the glue to stick the pastry strips to the pie sides. Press the ends of the strips to the pastry base to secure.
- Bake for 15 minutes, then turn the oven down to 160C/140oC and cook for a further 20 minutes.
- *how to make the toffee sauce*
- Place all of the ingredients into a non stick pan over a medium heat and bring to the boil while stirring often
- As soon as it comes to the boil, remove and pour into a jug
Would I make this again? Probably not. It was ok, but I prefer an apple pie to be honest! In fact mincemeat would work nicely too.
The #GBBOBloggers2017 Linky
Of course you are welcome to bake along with me and some other long standing GBBOBloggers, the more the merrier in fact. You can read the rules here which are not strict really, but they just explains my twitter accounts and all that jazz! All I ask is that you please add my badge, a link to my blog and share the GBBO love by sharing or commenting on some of the bakes that link up.
The linky will open every Tuesday after the new episode has aired on TV.
Thank you to everyone who linked up their Italian week inspired bakes. There were some delicious looking pizzas – sweet and savoury linked up. However, I haver to applaud those of you who attempted the Sfogliatella – hats off to Rebecca, Angela and Jacqueline. I honestly could not be bothered with all that faff! Therefore, I have to award Star Baker to Jacqueline because hers are beautiful!
I am also awarding another Star Baker – well done to Andrea with her Coconut Cannoli , the only person to attempt these dangerous little deep fried treats. I also love the sound of her Malibu and Coconut filling .
I cannot wait to see which Forgotten Bake you choose to bake this week x
Why haven’t I come across rum nicky before! It looks and sound delicious I shall definitely be making that this week. Thank you for awarding me a Star Baker again. see you later in the week and thanks for hosting.
Snap! 😉 We’ve done the no-Rum Nicky version too – isn’t it just scrummy! And i just love love love the fact that you served yours with a toffee sauce! So perfect 🙂
Angela x
Your pie looks great Jenny, and I bet it tasted really good!
I love the Rum Nicky, it is definitely a bake that should be brought back. And thanks for the star baker award last week, I have only just noticed . Andrea