Coventry Godcakes

It's the first week of January. The tree is still up but starting to look guilty about it, the kitchen smells faintly of clementines, and there's half a jar of mincemeat in the cupboard that needs using before it becomes a problem. This is what godcakes are for.

They come from Coventry, or somewhere thereabouts in the Midlands, and they used to be given by godparents to godchildren at New Year. A small triangular pastry, a flick of sugar, three slashes on the top for the Trinity, and a blessing passed along with it. Almost nobody makes them anymore. I find that quietly sad, the way I find a lot of small lost traditions sad, and so I make a batch most years on the second or third of January when the house has gone quiet again and the day stretches out without much demand on it.

They're not difficult. Bought puff pastry is fine. Better than fine, actually, if it's the all-butter sort. The mincemeat does most of the work, and the rest is just folding and cutting and letting the oven do what it does. We're only making dinner, except this isn't dinner. It's something to put on a plate with a cup of tea in the late afternoon, when the light has gone and someone you care about has come round, and you want to give them something warm without making a fuss about it.

I wrote it down in the notebook the first year I made them: "Godcakes. January 3rd. Cold. Three cuts. Pass it on." That seemed to be most of what mattered.