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Griddle cake

Bala, Gwynedd

Mrs Catherine Jones, Bala, baking griddle cakes. Transferring the cake from the plate to the bakestone

Mrs Catherine Jones, Bala, baking griddle cakes. Transferring the cake from the plate to the bakestone

This cake would be prepared in Merioneth when bread was in short supply, or when friends were expected to tea.

Griddle Cakes

The Recipe

You will need

  • half a pound flour
  • four ounces butter
  • two ounces sugar
  • one egg, well beaten
  • two ounces currants
  • quarter teaspoonful salt
  • half teaspoonful bicarbonate of soda
  • buttermilk or milk

Method

  1. Rub the butter into the flour, add the other dry ingredients and mix thoroughly. 
  2. Make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients, pour in the buttermilk and bicarbonate of soda and then pour the egg into the buttermilk. 
  3. Blend the dry ingredients with the egg and milk, and knead the mixture to a soft dough.
  4. Turn out on to a well floured board, knead to a large ball and flatten with the palm of the hand to form a round, flat cake, approximately half an inch thick. 
  5. Bake evenly on both sides on a moderately hot bakestone. 
  6. Split in half when warm and spread thickly with butter.

Bala, Merioneth.

Film/Recording

Welsh Cakes have been tea-time favourites in most parts of Wales since the second half of the nineteenth century. They were usually cooked on a bakestone and the Welsh names given to these cakes were usually based on the different regional Welsh name for the bakestone. These included pice bach, tishan lechwan or tishan ar y mân (bakestone cakes), but in English they became known generally as Welsh Cakes. Here's Rhian Gay demonstrating a modern version of Welsh cakes.

Welsh Cakes have been tea-time favourites in most parts of Wales since the second half of the nineteenth century. They were usually cooked on a bakestone and the Welsh names given to these cakes were usually based on the different regional Welsh name for the bakestone. These included pice bach, tishan lechwan or tishan ar y mân (bakestone cakes), but in English they became known generally as Welsh Cakes. Here's Rhian Gay demonstrating a modern version of Welsh cakes.

Mrs Annie Jones, Blaenau, Llanwrda, Dyfed making Welsh cakes, 1975

Oral history in Welsh: Richard Griffith Thomas of Llangynwyd, Glamorgan describing the bakestone and tripod. Mr Thomas was born in 1894.

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