Although I was born in Chester and still call it home, I can’t remember eating, or seeing, a Chester Pudding. But it is one of the myriad tarts, pies, cakes, buns, biscuits and puddings named after the town where they originated, and it is not alone in teetering on the edge of extinction.

Shrewsbury Cakes were once so famous they became a metaphor: “As short as a Shrewsbury Cake” wrote William Congreve in his 1700 play  The Way of the World. Recipes for these shortbread biscuits, dotted with caraway or currants, appeared in 18th- and 19th-century cookery books, but now they are rare. Canterbury Puddings, Prestbury Buns and Congleton Gingerbread are among the many town specialities that have almost disappeared.

Some, on the other hand, have become nationwide favourites: Eccles Cakes, Dundee Cakes and Chelsea Buns can be bought in supermarkets. You can also get Bakewell tarts, although in Bakewell itself, residents insist that these seriously misrepresent the town’s Bakewell Pudding, which is quite diff erent and is often served with custard or whipped cream.

Several towns have surviving confections that are not made elsewhere: Grasmere Gingerbread is one example. Market Drayton in Shropshire, Ashbourne in Derbyshire, Grantham in Nottinghamshire and Ormskirk in Lancashire all have their own form of gingerbread. Similarly, biscuits such as Anglesey’s Aberff raw Cakes and Lancashire’s Goosnargh Cakes are virtually impossible to find except in, or near, the villages that created them.

Bath Buns are a speciality at the Pump Room in Bath. Bakewell Pudding supposedly got its start when a maid at the town’s Rutland Arms mistakenly poured custard over a strawberry jam tart. At least two local businesses claim to have the original recipe, but they keep it a secret, as does the Grasmere shop famed for its gingerbread.

Local crops also gave rise to specialities. It is not surprising that gooseberry-fi lled Oldbury Pies come from the gooseberrygrowing area of the Midlands, or that a fried cherry pudding is named after Tonbridge in the cherry-growing county of Kent.

A common characteristic is that they often use ingredients once considered luxuries: currants, lemons, spices, or lavish amounts of butter, sugar or eggs. Because of this, a lot of them were only made for special occasions. Eccles Cakes were made for Wakes weeks and Goosnargh Cakes were for Whitsuntide. Llandarog in Camarthenshire has a cake made specifi cally for the fair.

All these specialities have been well loved, so why have many disappeared? After the Second World War, rationing lasted until 1954, depriving people of the butter, sugar, eggs, dried fruit and spices that were essential ingredients.

Changing work habits also played a part. Most women began to work outside the home and had less time for baking, where once they had regular baking days, making batches of bread and pies, and making use of leftovers.

In times past, when most jobs called for hard physical work, a filling pudding was a satisfying end to a meal. Today’s more sedentary workers might enjoy them, but find them too calorie-laden.

Because traditional baked goods were created before we had food processors and electric mixers, many are very simple. Gloucester Pancakes are so easy you can make them with children. Claire Hopley is a food writer and home economist who divides her time between Massachusetts, USA and Chester. In her book,  The History of Tea, published by Pen and Sword, she traces the history of this English institution.

View some locally baked treats recipe ideas on our Recipes section here