Welsh Lavercakes

Known in Welsh as "bara lawr", lavercakes are a combination of the traditional Welsh delicacy, laver seaweed, and rolled oats, fried in bacon fat.

Usually, they're eaten as part of a full Welsh breakfast. While the Welsh tend to disagree on the exact components of our national breakfast, generally, we'd expect to see bacon, eggs and Laverbread on the plate, at the very least, although some believe that a true Welsh breakfast also includes fresh cockles (Penclawdd cockles, ideally), sausages, tomatoes, mushrooms and, sometimes, black pudding.

Ready in just 15 minutes from scratch, lavercakes make for a quick, easy and affordable traditional Welsh treat.

Course Breakfast, Brunch

Cuisine British, Welsh

Keyword laverbread, oats, welsh breakfast

Prep Time 5

Cook Time 10

Total Time 15

Servings

Calories 331kcal

Cost £1

Equipment

1 small mixing bowl
1 Non-stick frying pan
1 Spatula

Ingredients

240 g Laverbread uncooked
150 g rolled oats
8 slices Welsh unsmoked back bacon or streaky bacon rashers
1 tbsp vegetable oil
2 tbsp plain flour

Instructions

Place the Laverbread into a medium-sized mixing bowl.
Add the rolled oats to the Laverbread, a tablespoon a time, stirring until throughly combined.
Once combined, sprinkle the plain flour over your work surface, to prevent any sticking.
Using your hands, form the Laverbread and oat mixture into small, flat patties - around 1cm thick. Alternatively, you can also make smaller balls, or elongated, sausage-like patties.
Heat the vegetable oil in a non-stick frying pan and add the raw lavercakes to the pan. Fry for 3-4 minutes per side, then remove from the pan and place onto some kitchen towel to drain off any excess oil.
Serve your lavercakes hot, alone or as part of a traditional Welsh breakfast.

Notes

If you like, you can also add fresh cockles to your lavercakes, for a traditional Welsh touch. Read more about this in my blog post.
If your lavercakes are slightly on the mushy side, or difficult to form into patties, simply add some more oats.
While shaping the lavercakes by hand can get a little messy, I find this is the best way to form them into tight, compact patties, so you can be confident they won't disintegrate in the pan.

Nutrition