Traditional Welsh cake recipe

Happy St David’s Day folks, we hope all our readers in Wales have a brilliant, fun-filled day planned. For the rest of us, here is a lovely little Welsh treat you can cook up to join in the fun. Welsh Cakes!

If you’ve never had Welsh Cakes before, oh you have been missing out on an absolute treat! They are little griddle cakes flavoured with spices and dried fruit, baked on a griddle. They are super tasty cold with a cup of tea or served warm, but they are best sprinkled with sugar. A real Welsh treat. I knocked up a batch of these this week so I could tell you all about it, took them into work and the boys had scoffed the lot before lunchtime. Yup, they are that tasty! Especially with a cuppa.

Ingredients

• 225g plain flour
• 100g butter
• 75g caster sugar
• 50g currants
• ½tsp baking powder
• ¼tsp mixed spice
• 1 egg
• A pinch salt
• A splash of milk to bring it together

How to make these little delights

The first thing to do is sift the dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, mixed spice) together into a mixing bowl. Then you have a choice. If you are lazy, like me, you can put this into your food processor, and add the butter and pulse until you get fine breadcrumbs. If you are a purist and want to keep things traditional, cut the butter into small cubes and rub it into the flour using your fingertips. If you’ve ever made scones then this will feel familiar.

Next stir in the sugar and currants, pour in the egg and mix to form a dough, you might need to add a tiny splash of milk to bring the mixture together as it’s quite dry.

Now for the fun bit.

Roll the dough out on a lightly floured surface to about 1cm, then using a pastry cutter cut out little rounds about the size of a rich tea biscuit.

Cooking

You can cook these in a heavy-based frying pan or if you have a griddle then that’s best. Don’t let the heat get too high, as the cakes will cook on the outside too quickly, and not in the middle.

Once cooked and while they are still hot, sprinkle with caster sugar and serve.