Have you ever had a Welsh cake before? If not, you’ve been missing out. This traditional treat of Wales, often called bakestones, has been loved since the late 19th century when sugar, fat, and other sweet ingredients were added to this griddle-cooked cake.

Served both hot and cold, these cakes are a bit like a scone, pancake, and cookie rolled into one, all the while being unique in both taste and texture. They feature similar ingredients of scones while being cooked in the same manner as a pancake on a griddle and look like little cookies.

Welsh cakes are regarded as treat reserved for special occasions, for they take time to craft. Made by hand, there aren’t very many commercial bakeries that produce them anymore. The only one local to me I know of is the little cake shop in Betws-Y-Coed. And obviously with lockdown restrictions in place and not being able to travel, I'm missing my little trips down there very much. Therefor I decided to make my own.... which by the way are amazing!

Hungry for more? Keep reading to discover more about Welsh cakes!


Welsh Cakes History
Once upon a time, Wales was known as the largest producer of coal. The men would go off to the coal mines while the lady of the household would prepare Welsh cakes. These would be served with afternoon tea. Children were also given these delightful griddle-cooked cakes to take along with their lunches for school.

Because Welsh cakes are rather durable and easy to tote, they became quite favoured among the coal miners. They could easily be stashed in a coat pocket, perfect for bringing cheer to a dismal day in the mines.

Soon though, life would change for the people of Wales. The world began to modernize, even in this quaint and charming Celtic country. Mining faded out and big business boomed in. Suddenly, the time and devotion to crafting special treats like the Welsh cake faded away.

But, with this lovely recipe we can change that, right guys???

Ingredients 
250g Self Raising Flour
85g Caster Sugar
1Tsp Ground Cinnamon
75g Raisins
1 Egg (whisked in a jug)
55g Lard-Cubed
55g Butter-Cubed
2Tbsp Milk

Now before I go on, I've gone super traditional on you all and used lard in my recipe. A lot of modern day recipes no longer use lard and solely use butter, whereas the older recipes only use lard. After a few trial and errors and tweaking I find the lard a must as it really adds to the melt in the mouth texture of traditional welsh cakes. However if you do not want to use lard, just use 110g Butter altogether ok?

Secondly a lot of recipes use granulated sugar, however I found the texture to be quite grainy and not the melt in the mouth texture I was looking for therefore I have only used caster sugar in my recipe.

Method

1. Mix the flour, sugar and cinnamon in a mixing bowl.
2. Added cubed butter and lard.
3. Combine with fingertips until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs.
4. Add whisked egg and raisins. Combine thoroughly.
5. Add milk and mix. This should now form a lovely dough.
6. Tip dough out onto a floured surface and roll to about 1cm thickness.
7. Using a circular cutter, cut out your welsh cakes. Any left over dough, place back into a ball, knead, roll and repeat until all dough is used. This makes exactly 18 Welsh cakes with minimal waste.
8. To cook your welsh cakes, spray a large frying pan with fry light and bring to the boil. Once the pan is very hot, turn the temperature down to a simmer and place your welsh cakes in your frying pan in batches of 3. Fry for roughly 2 minutes on each side until a lovely caramel brown colour.
9. Place your welsh cakes on a cooling rack and sprinkle with caster sugar to finish.
10. A little tip, I find putting caster sugar in a bowl and dipping my welsh cakes in the sugar, far easier and more aesthetically appealing than just sprinkling it on. 

Steph's Variations:

Chocolate fudge (Nom nom nom!! My fav)
-Replace 75g of raisins for:
35g Fudge chunks
40g Dark chocolate chips.

Cranberry and white chocolate (perfect for Christmas gifts!)
-Replace 75g raisins for:
35g Dried cranberries
40g White chocolate chips.

Double chocolate (The kids Favs!!)
-Replace 75g raisins for:
35g Milk chocolate chips
35g White chocolate chips.


As always with my recipes if you try them at home, please feel free to email me your photo's. I love to see my recipes being enjoyed in the homes of others and by their families too. Enjoy and much love, Steph xxx

As I mentioned in my previous recipe blog, I have a newfound love of making sweet breads & dough. So much so that I refuse to buy store bought pizzas for the tribe anymore. Opting instead for making our own. Not only is it 110% more delicious but it is really rewarding to making it all by hand. The children love them and enjoy the process of putting their own tomato puree and toppings on. It's a family event and one we thoroughly all enjoy.

Not only is all of the above enough inspiration to make your own, but it is also highly cost effective to make your own too. Averaging roughly half the price of store bought pizzas and and an amazing quarter of the price of a family dominoes. Win win if you ask me.

Making the perfect dough isn't a science exactly however the magic all occurs with the amount of effort you put into the preparation of the dough. It is a perfect recipe to do when you need to exert some excess stress as you literally have to beat the life out of your dough to help it proof perfectly.

Ingredients 

500g Strong white flour
1 x 7g sachet of yeast
300ml warm water
2Tbsp olive oil (garlic olive oil is yum in this too!)

Method

1. Mix your flour and yeast in a large mixing bowl.
2. Make a well in the centre of your mix.
3. Mix your water and oil in a jug.
4. Pour your warm liquid into the well in your dry mix.
5. Combine thoroughly with a wooden spoon.
6. Once your dough in formed tip it out onto a floured surface and literally using a fist beat the living crap out of it. I put my fist palm down in the centre of my dough ball and squash it as I push/roll it forward. Then I pull it back towards me and repeat this process for a good 5-10 minutes.
7. Once you have done that, place your mix back in the mixing bowl and cover with clingfilm. Leave in a warm place (the kitchen) to prove/rise for 60-90 minutes.
8. Once the time has passed and your mixture has risen well take it out and place it on a floured surface (it will be sticky and stringy at this point)
9. Repeat step 6 for 5 minutes.
10. Leave to rise on your work surface for a further 5 minutes.
11. Then viola it is ready to use! If I have a ball I tend to cut into four pieces as you would a cake and then roll them out. This will make 4 medium sized pizzas.
12. Use plenty of flour when rolling your dough and try not to flip it as you want to base to be more floury so to speak then it doesn't stick to the pizza pan when baking.
13. Add your tomato puree and desired toppings. I like to use BBQ sauce as the sauce for my base! I also like to create stuffed crusts for that true dominoes style satisfaction.

As always with all of my recipes, feel free to email me some photos. I love adding your photos to my blog and seeing my recipes being enjoyed in your homes by your families. Much love-Steph xxx

One of my favourite things to bake just lately has been bread dough, nothing quite beats the smell of freshly baked bread filling the hallways of my home. There's a secret satisfaction to be had in enjoying home baked goodness and partaking in the therapeutic practise of baking. I've thoroughly enjoyed home made pizza dough & making fresh pizza's with the tribe as well as making some seeded loafs and crusty cobs.

This recipe came about as last week I was wondering what to do with my jam as I still had plenty left but it was nearing its use by date. Hopefully you all had a chance to read my jam recipe last month? After a little googling I came across a style of sweet bread called bakba, so I decided to use my own dough recipe, tweak it a little and henceforth created this beautiful sweet blueberry bread. I've enjoyed mine for breakfast with peanut butter or more blueberry jam for sweetness overload! 

It really is satisfying to me that once this was baked, I knew I'd created something special as it looked, tasted and smelt divine. But also knowing even the jam was homemade by myself bought me a feeling of pride and contentment, especially when seeing it enjoyed by my family. I even wrapped a few slices up and gave it to my mum to have with her mothers day breakfast.

Ingredients 
Bread dough=
500g Strong white flour
7g pack of yeast
300ml of warm water
1 Tbsp of vegetable oil
4 Tbsp of caster sugar

Extras=
6 Tbsp of blueberry Jam

Method
The secret to making a good dough that will rise nicely, really is in the method. If you put the effort in at this stage I pinky promise it will pay off later on.

Mix flour, yeast and sugar together in a mixing bowl and make a well in the centre once done.
In a jug mix your warm water and vegetable oil.

Pour your vegetable oil into the well and thoroughly mix it into your dry mix. 

Once all in combined, empty your dough mix out onto a lightly floured surface and beat/knead it. This is the most important part. You really want to give it a good battering, the only way I can describe my technique it to say using a fist drive your hand into the ball almost squashing it as you're rolling it forward, then roll it back towards yourself and repeat the method. Do this for at least 5 minutes.

Once done place the ball of dough in your mixing bowl again and cover with clingfilm. 

Leave the dough to sit/rise for at least 60-90 minutes.

Once done, remove your dough from the bowl, it should have risen nicely and be sticking to the side of the bowl, this is normal and shows your bread is ready. Beat/knead it once more for a further 5 minutes on a lightly floured surface.

Let sit on your surface for 10 minutes before rolling out your dough into a rectangle shape.

Spread your jam mixture on top of your dough and then roll your dough into a log like shape. Please make sure your surface was thoroughly floured as you do not want your dough to be sticking to your surface at this point!

Once you have a log shape, cut it in half length ways and then twist both lengths together into a sort of plait before placing your sweet bread into a 2lb loaf tin. 

Bake in the oven for roughly 30-40 minutes until lightly browned on top.

Let your bread cool before removing from your tin and slicing.

This should make 12 slices, as always nutritional information is below followed by further baking tips.

Nutritional info
Calories per slice 182

Carbs 33g
Fat 2g
Protein 5.6g

I think next time I make the blueberry bread I'm going to add a nice icing glaze to the top of my bread once it's cooled to make it almost like a jam swirl pastry type bread if that makes any sense whatsoever haha. You can use pretty much any jam for this recipe, I imagine raspberry would be quite moreish!! 

You could also use Nutella (which I am going to do next) on this bread to make a lovely Chocolatey swirled bread, which I reckon will be amazing and the kids will love it!!

As always, if you make this recipe in your own homes, please feel free to email me your opinions on it and any pictures of your bakes. I always love to see my recipes come to life in other peoples homes and being enjoyed by their families. Enjoy and much love Steph xxxx


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