I never made a Chorley cake unless I had pastry left over from pies etc. so I think we're talking more or less the same thing. I didn't use currants, though, only raisins.
The off-cuts from pies were, when my children were young, the bits that they made into a jam tart "for daddy". The pastry was rolled and stretched around until it was grey, usually fashioned into a vaguely round shape with a depression in the middle, filled with jam or similar and put in the oven along with the pies. It would emerge dark brown with black edges, the jam having bubbled out over the sides, and be presented to daddy who, brave man that he was, always ate it and said how lovely it was.
