Welsh Cakes

My Granny was Welsh, she made great Welsh Cakes... and I remember making them with her.   However, Welsh Cakes are usually made on a griddle, a flat iron plate, which I don't have.  Having a new 'ceramic non-stick' frying pan, we needed a recipe to try out its non-stick properties and Welsh Cakes fitted the bill nicely.

I don't have my Granny's recipe but I do think the one I made up is pretty close... apart from using gluten free flour (which I don't think existed back in Granny's day!)

The ingredients we used were:-

225g self raising flour  (we used Dove's Farm gluten free)
pinch of salt
1 teaspoon mixed spice
110g butter (Granny used to use lard)
75g caster sugar
75g mixed currants
1 large egg beaten

Using a bowl, we mixed the flour, salt, spice and butter.  We used a hand balloon whisk to get a breadcrumb-like texture (and this also 'saves' my ailing fiingers from too much effort)

Next the sugar and currants were added and mixed through.


Finally the beaten egg was added.  At this point, the mix it may be a bit dry still, so if needed, use a little buttermilk or yogurt, to make the dough soft enough to be able to brought together (we did add yogurt to ours).

Once the dough came together and wasn't too wet or dry.  We lightly pressed it out, then rolled to about 5-7mm thick.  The dough was then cut in 5cm rounds.

Heating the pan, the cakes were cooked - you can use a heated griddle, lightly buttered frying pan, or as we did in a ceramic coated frying pan (it worked very well.

Cooking till browned on one side, the cakes were flipped/turned and cooked on the other side (about 3 mins a side... but depends on heat, thickness and the level of 'cook' you're aiming for).

Once cooked on both sides, the cakes were removed, placed on a plate and drizzled lightly with caster sugar.

Eaten warm, they were delicious.  They were also very tasty with a cup of tea and, surprisingly, kept well in an airtight container.