Welsh Foods

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Pancakes

Black-and-white photograph of four pancakes cooking on a griddle over an old-fashioned brick fireplace.

Baking lightcakes. Kennixton, St Fagans National Museum of History.

Pancakes were baked generally throughout the whole of Wales but their names, in Welsh, differed widely from county to county or from district to district, namely:

  • cramwythen pl. cramoth (parts of Carmarthenshire and Glamorgan)
  • crempog pl. crempogau (in the counties of north Wales, generally)
  • ffroesen pl. ffroes (parts of Glamorgan)
  • poncagen pl. poncagau (parts of Ceredigion)
  • pancogen pl. pancocs (part of Pembrokeshire)
  • pancosen pl. pancos (parts of Carmarthenshire and Ceredigion)
Griddle Cakes

The Recipe

You will need

  • one pound plain flour
  • a little salt
  • a little nutmeg
  • three ounces sugar
  • four ounces butter
  • three eggs
  • a little warm milk
  • two teaspoonfuls baking powder

Method

  1. Mix the flour, salt, nutmeg and sugar together in a warm basin and then rub in the butter into this dry mixture. 
  2. Add a little warm milk to the beaten eggs and gradually pour into the dry ingredients, beating well with a wooden spoon to make a smooth batter. 
  3. If the batter appears to be too stiff, a little warm milk may be added. 
  4. Allow to stand for half an hour, and then fold in the baking powder but do not beat. 
  5. Now drop gently from a tablespoon on to a moderately hot, well greased bakestone until light brown on both sides. 
  6. Put on a plate, spread each with butter and sprinkle with sugar. 
  7. Continue to bake the remainder of the batter in the same way.

Abercynon, Glamorgan.

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