There’s something about us Scots and our love of questionable foods. Haggis is the obvious one (love it), Lorne sausage, macaroni pies, deep-fried Mars Bar and even Irn Bru cupcakes – Scotland is famed for it’s love of “unique” foods. And it could only be the Scots who would come up with a pet-name such as Fly Cemetery for a sweet little pastry treat like Fruit Slice.
Ever so simple and a lot more tasty than it’s pet-name may suggest, Fruit Slice is a melt-in-the-mouth short crust pastry treat, loaded with currants and lashings of sugar.
It gets it’s pet-name from it’s appearance, rather than it’s flavour. Not for the weak stomached; it’s simply because of the currant’s resemblance too, well, lots of dead flies… Our Granny can even recall when her own Papa would pick out the currants and joke that they were delicious little flies! Yum…
I was quite surprised just how many people were chuffed to receive a piece of Fruit Slice when I made it recently. Not a huge fan of currants myself, I was unsure of how many people would be happy to take some off my hands but it turns out there’s already been requests for another batch!
Granny’s Top Tips
♥ Traditionally Fly Cemetery uses currants but you can mix it up to suit your own taste. Raisins, sultanas, cranberries, mixed peel…all can make a nice addition.
♥ Why not mix things up (and messier) by trying Fruit Slice with puff pastry for a change?
Ingredients
For the Pastry
- 300 g Plain Flour
- 150 g Butter (chilled)
- 50 g Icing Sugar
- 1 Egg
- 2-3 tsp Cold Water
For the Filling
- 200 g Currants
- 75 g Sugar
- 50 g Butter (softened)
- 1 tsp Mixed Spice
Instructions
- Pre-heat your oven to 180°c (or 160°c for a fan assisted oven or Gas Mark 4) and grease a 20cm by 28cm baking tray with a little butter. Set aside.
- In a large bowl, using your fingers, rub the flour and butter together until it resembles breadcrumbs. Stir through the sugar before adding the egg. Mix until combined, adding a teaspoon of cold water as required and knead into a soft pastry dough.
- Wrap the dough in cling film and place in the fridge to cool and firm up, whilst preparing the filling.
- In a bowl mix the currants, sugar, butter and mixed spice until combined.
- Remove the pastry from the fridge and roll to 0.5cm thickness and cut into two large rectangles, about the size of your tray. Place on pastry rectangle onto your pre-greased tray.
- Spoon the currant mixture evenly onto the pastry on the baking tray, leaving a small gap around the edges. Wet the edges with a little water. Place the other sheet of pastry on top of the currants and gently press the edges together with your fingers, before finishing with a fork.
- Brush the top pastry with a little milk or beaten egg, before pricking a few holes on the top of the pastry
- Bake for 25-30 minutes until a light golden brown colour.
- Remove from the oven and sprinkle a little sugar on top to finish. Once completely cool, cut into squares or slices of your desired size.
Notes
What do you know it as; Fruit Slice or Fly Cemetery?
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These look amazing, and so easy too! x
Very easy, Donna! And I’m a big fan of easy recipes ;)
I like your recipes but I would like you to leave a tray/tin size please
Cheers for an easy to follow recipe :) My mum calls it ‘fly paper cake’ :D looking forward to eating it!
This currant slice lacks love, to improve ,,being a chef, this product to me is just dried currants between 2 slabs of pastry, boring, how about binding the currants with currant jam, not to liquid, but thick jam, so it dosent run into the pastry, this product with a cup of char, would be a gastronomical delight
It wouldn’t be a fly pie if it had Jam in it, would it
I grew up just after the war making this with freshly chopped mint and the whole idea was NOT to make it too sweet but have a contrast between the short pastry and the sweet fruit. Sugar and jam weren’t available until 1953.
People eat (and have become used to) far, far too much sugar, so we should be using this original recipe, not spoiling it by overloading it with jam.
This recipe could be adapted to make Christmas pies with a fruit mix and citrus zest.
Thanks Granny
We call it dead fly pie! This is just going in the oven now! Can’t wait!
Fab! Let me know how it turns out, Gina.
Delicious, thank you for recipe. Must confess used bought pastry and added half an eating apple, chopped.
The last batch of #flycemetry was so good, decided to make a double batch this time ;) !
Wish I’d have found this recipe years ago…so easy ! My Dad loved these “Flies Cemeteries” and Eccles Cakes, would have loved to have made him these. I’m having a little trip down memory lane.
Thanks for commenting, Ann. Fly Cemetery is definitely one that brings back memories for people. We’re also looking a sharing a Eccles Cake recipe in the near future so be sure to keep checking back :)
That would be brilliant. I grew up in the town where Eccles cakes were first made. Nothing like a proper Eccles cake. But also loved currant slice. Both made by my Gran and Mum.
what is the spice mix?????????
Hi, I am in UK,my jar of mixed spice listed the ingredients as Dried orange peel(60%), Cassia, Ginger, Nutmeg, Pimentoes, Caraway seeds
I also want to know, what is spice mix??
yes!! Please tell us what you mean by “spice mix”?? what kind of spices are in it? We have a pumpkin pie spice mix here in the USA, is that what you mean?
I added chopped dates, chopped apple and a good tbsp of marmalade to bind it together. It’s delicious.
Can you freeze these please
Yes you can and they cut up much more easily and neater when frozen
Would like to know size of tin/tray to use
Thanks
What size of tray/tin to use please
Thanks
These were always a big hit after Christmas Dinner. Mom and Grandmother were from Dunfermline, Scotland and never heard them referred to as anything other than Currant squares.
I’ve been making these years I know them as currant slices made with Ruff puff pastry from my mums old Bero cook book they are my husbands favourite cake.
These Current Squares look delicious. I think I will make some.
Sixty years ago we called them “dead fly squares” in Adelaide.
We used to purchase these at a local bakery that closed a number of years ago, out of the blue my husband asked me to make some. Thank you for the recipe they went down a storm. I reduced the amount of sugar and next time I will try adding some jam (as suggested above) to bind it all together. Thanks again – these were very tasty
I haven’t seen a fly cemetery for years, I live in New Zealand and every bakery used to have their own variation of them. We always called them that. A lost treasure.
Fly cemetry was one of Mum’s signature bakes. She often filled it with mincemeat which made it lovely and moist. I can taste it now!
Could you please tell me what’s in British Spice? Thanks so much Ann
Love this recipe!
Thank you for sharing. Here in Yorkshire we call it “fly pie”. We used to get these from the local bakery when I was a child – but with an extra sweet layer of glacé icing on top.
This was always a family favourite ( well? Anything dad really liked) that went along with Eccles cakes and Chorley cakes!!
Lesley
Excellent recipe haven’t had these for l live in Yorkshie
Exceptionally good recipe for Flies Graveyard.
It came out perfect. Just as the traditional fruit slice should be. No need to add jam as a previous baker suggested. I think it would make it too sticky and lose all the spices but I guess it’s down to personal preference.
I added light soft brown sugar to the currant mix. I also made the pastry (handle it a little as possible). Then I cut it into 2 equal sizes, then put it in the freezer for 10 mins only and the pastry rolled out perfectly.
This is another winner for me. Thank you!
This was delicious. I made changes for US, but tried to keep the same. I used our all purpose flour and Irish butter since European butters have different fat and water. I’ve never used confectioners sugar in a short crust, but it’s fabulous. I used a silpat liner on a quarter sheet pan. I would roll out thinner, say closer to 1/8 of an inch than the 1/4 inch thickness to get a larger surface. A 350 oven needed at least 40 minutes. It was so easy and delicious. I bought the mixed spice from the Boston Spice Co, and I’m glad I did. It’s quite different from the pumpkin or apple pie spices in the US. It tasted more like the spices we use in my family’ Scandinavian deserts.
I did weigh all the ingredients, and followed directions exactly. This was such a pleasant memory of when I lived for a bit in The UK as a girl. Wonderful find!
My Granny in Dunfermline always made these ! So nostalgic … I might give them a go .