Cute Little Welsh Cakes

I did all the baking at the weekend and am now baked out. No baking happened this Monday as I did it all yesterday. I, maybe foolishly, bribed everyone in the agency I work in with baking if they filled in some training diaries we need to do every year. It hopefully softened the annoyance of me harassing them on a daily basis to fill them in. In the end it got done and I found myself with having to fulfil the promise.

Luckily I found myself with a quiet weekend as The Thew was off running 66 miles as part of his training for taking on the Sahara (another story completely). I used Saturday to get out and about, run, go to museums, eat burgers and drink wine – as you do. That left Sunday for weekend chores and generally slobbing around. I do feel slightly guilty (of the Irish kind) if I don’t do much and am at home, so baking means that I have something productive to show for it. As baking really doesn’t take a huge amount of time, or there are things you can do in front of the TV while watching ‘Romancing the Stone’, it allows for slobbing and productivity. Bonus.

So among the various things I made were Welsh Cakes. I’d forgotten how much I like them and remembered them when I realised I had run out of sultanas – one of the weird associations I have with ingredients. So I decided to make those as I hadn’t yet for my colleagues and I could make quite a lot in a short period of time. They are like mini scones but not at the same time - try them.

Ingredients

230g self raising flour

110g cold butter (cut into chunks)

85g sugar

60g sultanas (you could probably use currants if you prefer)

Grating of nutmeg

1 beaten egg

1.     Put the flour in a bowl and add the butter. Rub the butter into the flour until it looks like breadcrumbs. (I did this while watching ‘Romancing the Stone’ which is just epic – that white outfit Michael Douglas wears? A-mazing!) You just want to use the tips of your fingers when doing this to keep the butter from melting too much and it becoming mush. My mum always said that you want to finish with clean palms!

2.    Add the sugar, sultanas and nutmeg. You don’t want much nutmeg – about ¼ teaspoon. Mix well.

3.    Then add the egg and make a dough. Knead it for a while to make sure it’s mixed well. (I didn’t do this once and it didn’t work out well, so do it!)

4.    Roll out on a floured surface until about 1cm thick. Now I use quite a small cutter but you can use up to 6cm one. The amount you get out depends on the size of each one.

5.    Wipe vegetable oil on a frying pan and put on a very low heat. Make sure the pan is hot before putting your first cakes in. Leave a gap between them and do them in batches. Keep wiping a little more oil on for each batch with a kitchen paper towel.

6.    You’ll need to keep an eye on time. I do about 2 minutes a side and I use a palette knife to flip them over. Basically the butter in the dough browns up quickly so you don’t want to burn them. Flip one over to see how it’s doing it you are worried. You’ll see them start to puff up while cooking which is just so cute.

7.    Remove and cool as they tend to keep cooking a bit once out of the pan. They are very delicate when hot so be careful. I would recommending eating one warm but be careful not to devour the lot.