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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 an essential part of the welcome given to visitors when invited for afternoon tea in the counties of Caernarvon and Anglesey.  They were also prepared there on Shrove Tuesday.  On this occasion three kinds of pancakes were prepared in the farmhouses.  For the master and his family crempog wen and crempog furum were served, while the servants were given crempog surgeirch (see respective recipes).  It was also a general custom in the Lleyn peninsula on Shrove Tuesday for the children to go around from house to house singing a suitable verse at the door while begging for pancakes: e.g.

 

            Sgwelwch chi’n dda ga i grempog?

            Mae ‘ngheg i’n grimpin grempog

            Mae Mam rhy dlawd i brynu blawd

            Mae ‘Nhad rhy ddiog i weithio

            ‘Sgwelwch chi’n dda ga i grempog?

 

        (Please may I have some pancakes?

            My mouth is parched for pancakes

            My mother is too poor to buy flour

            My father is too lazy to work

            Please may I have some pancakes?)

Griddle Cakes

The Recipe

You will need

  • ten ounces plain flour
  • half a teaspoonful salt
  • two ounces butter
  • three quarters of a pint of warm buttermilk
  • two eggs, well beaten
  • three ounces sugar
  • one teaspoonful bicarbonate of soda
  • one tablespoonful vinegar

Method

  1. Melt the butter in the warm buttermilk, pour gradually into the flour and beat well. 
  2. Allow this mixture to stand for a few hours, if possible.
  3. When ready to bake the pancakes, stir the sugar, the bicarbonate of soda and the vinegar into the beaten eggs. 
  4. Pour this second mixture into the first one and beat well to make a smooth batter.
  5. Drop the batter from a tablespoon on to a well greased and hot bakestone or griddle. 
  6. Bake over a moderate heat until the pancakes are golden brown on both sides.
  7. Then spread butter on each pancake whilst hot and serve warm.  (A cup of sour cream stirred into the batter acts as a further raising agent.)

Llanfachraeth, Anglesey.

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