Wonderful Welsh Cakes

This weekend, I took over the kitchen to knock up some Welsh Cakes from scratch — a first for me. Although I’ve been dying to do it for ages, I’ve only just got round to digging out the griddle. For a first attempt they didn’t turn out bad, although they were a bit too burnt and moist. I think I overdid the ‘splash’ of milk, but they must have been alright because my boyfriend managed to eat eighteen, apparently without even realising.

I used a recipe from Liz Scourfield of Saturday Kitchen, but I doubled the ingredients and ended up with twenty generously-sized cakes. The recipe states thirty minutes for preparation time and less than ten minutes for cooking, but if you’re anything like me I’d allow more. The original recipe can be found at http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/welshcakes_67264, but if you would prefer a more interesting version with lots of pointless photos then stick to mine, below.

Ingredients
450g/16oz self-raising flour, sieved
220g/8oz Welsh salted butter
2 eggs
2 handfuls of sultanas
Splash of milk
170g/6oz caster sugar

Method

1. Rub the butter into the flour to form breadcrumbs.

2. Add the sugar, sultanas and eggs.

3. Mix to combine and form a ball of dough, using a splash of milk if necessary.

4. Using a rolling pan, roll out the dough until it is 5mm/one-quarter-inch-thick and cut out rounds using a 7.5-10cm/3-4in fluted cutter.

Rub a bakestone or griddle with butter, wipe away the excess and place it onto a direct heat, like a stove. When it gets fairly hot, you can start cooking the rounds — give them between 3-5 minutes per side, depending on how you like them. Each side should be golden brown before turning.

5. Remove from the griddle, dust with caster sugar and leave to cool — or just scoff them whilst they’re hot.

Apparently they’re also quite nice sandwiched together with jam, but unfortunately I have none left to experiment with!