Bakewell is a small Derbyshire market town that most of the country knows for a cake it has never actually eaten. The pink-iced, cherry-topped thing sold in supermarkets under the name Bakewell tart is a distant descendant of something quite different, and the town itself sells two distinct puddings that are frequently confused with each other and with the supermarket version.
Sorting this out is, genuinely, one of the reasons people come here. So: what is the difference, where did each come from, and which should you order?
The pudding is the original and the odd one. It has a flaky puff pastry base, a layer of sieved jam spread over it, and on top a filling of egg and almond paste — closer to a set custard than to a sponge. It comes out of the oven risen, uneven and golden, and it is served warm, often with cream or custard.
It is not a cake. It is not neat. It has no icing and no glacé cherry, and a good one has a wobble to it. The first documented reference dates from 1836.
The tart came later, evolving out of the pudding some time in the middle of the nineteenth century, and it is a different construction entirely: a shortcrust pastry shell, a layer of raspberry jam, and a filling of frangipane — a sweet, firm, almond-flavoured sponge-custard — with flaked almonds scattered on top.
It is neater, firmer, sweeter and easier to transport, which is exactly why it, rather than the pudding, became the version the rest of the country knows.
The iced, cherry-topped thing in the supermarket packet is a mass-produced descendant of the tart, with fondant icing replacing the flaked almonds. It is not a Bakewell tart, and it is certainly not a Bakewell pudding, and saying so in the town will win you friends.
The story everyone tells involves an accident at the Rutland Arms on The Square, some time in the 1820s. The landlady left instructions for a jam tart; the cook — the versions differ on whether it was carelessness or a misunderstanding — spread the jam on the pastry first and poured the egg-and-almond mixture over the top instead of stirring it into the pastry. The guests liked the mistake, and the mistake stayed.
That is the traditional account. The difficulty is that several establishments in Bakewell claim to hold the original recipe, and each claim is defended with a certain amount of vigour. The first firm documentary evidence is from 1836, more than a decade after the alleged accident, and there is no surviving proof that ties the dish to any one kitchen. Food historians have also noted that egg-and-almond pastry dishes of this general type existed well before the nineteenth century.
The town has, sensibly, decided not to resolve it. Two shops on and near The Square both trade on their claim, and both are worth going into.
The Old Original Bakewell Pudding Shop on The Square is the one with the strongest claim on the name and the longest queue. It bakes puddings on the premises, sells them to take away in boxes designed to survive a car journey, and has a restaurant upstairs doing full meals as well as afternoon tea.
The Bakewell Tart Shop and Coffee House on Matlock Street is the other institution, and — as the name suggests — leans towards the tart. It is a proper coffee house as well as a bakery, and it is a couple of minutes’ walk from the busiest part of the square.
The Rutland Arms Hotel on The Square is where the accident is supposed to have happened, and it serves pudding in its dining room. Sitting in the building the story is about is a pleasant kind of tourism, whether or not the story is true.
Several of the town’s other cafés — the Lavender Tea Rooms, Graze, the Secret Garden — serve one or the other, and the bakeries sell both to take away. Our eating and drinking guide covers the rest of the town.
Ask for a pudding if you want the warm, wobbly, flaky-pastry original, ideally with custard, ideally eaten on the premises. Ask for a tart if you want the firm, sweet, almond-topped version that travels.
If you want to settle the argument properly, buy one of each and eat them in the Recreation Ground by the river. It is what the day trippers have been doing since the railway arrived in 1862, and it remains the correct approach.
Puddings are sold boxed and are designed to travel; they keep for a few days and reheat well. Tarts keep longer. Both shops post them, and both do a substantial mail-order trade — which tells you something about how far the affection for these things spreads.
If you are buying for a household of people who think a Bakewell is a small iced cake with a cherry on it, buy the pudding. The conversion rate is high.
Bakewell’s other food traditions are worth a mention while you are here. Derbyshire oatcakes are a soft, savoury pancake, nothing like the Scottish biscuit, and best eaten hot with cheese and bacon. Hartington to the west was for a long time the home of Stilton making in Derbyshire, and blue cheese from the area is widely sold in the town. And the Monday market, both the general one in the town and the livestock market at the Agricultural Business Centre, is the reason Bakewell exists at all — the puddings came much later.
It is worth putting the pastry in context. Bakewell was a market town long before it was a dessert: it sits on the Wye where the routes across the White Peak converge, it has held a market since the Middle Ages, and All Saints Church holds a collection of Anglo-Saxon carved stones that shows how long people have been gathering here.
What changed everything was the railway. The Midland line arrived in 1862, over the loud objections of John Ruskin, and suddenly a market town of a couple of thousand people was an afternoon’s outing from Sheffield, Derby and Manchester. Day trippers wanted something to buy, eat and take home, and the pudding was already there waiting. The line closed in 1968, but by then the reputation was made — and the trackbed became the Monsal Trail, which now brings a comparable number of visitors on foot and by bicycle.
The town is still a working one. The livestock market at the Agricultural Business Centre is one of the largest in the region, and the Monday market fills the streets. The pudding shops sit in the middle of that rather than replacing it, which is a large part of why Bakewell has stayed a town rather than becoming a set.
The pudding has a flaky puff pastry base, sieved jam and an egg-and-almond paste topping, and is served warm. The tart has a shortcrust shell, raspberry jam, frangipane and flaked almonds, and is served cold.
The pudding. It is documented from 1836; the tart evolved from it later in the nineteenth century.
No. It is a mass-produced descendant with fondant icing instead of flaked almonds.
Several places claim it, including the Old Original Bakewell Pudding Shop and the Rutland Arms Hotel, where the accident is said to have happened. There is no settled answer.
Yes — the shops box them for travel and both run a mail-order service.