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White Bread

Breconshire

Mixing the dough. Miss Margied Jones, Llanuwchllyn, Merioneth.

Mixing the dough. Miss Margied Jones, Llanuwchllyn, Merioneth.

On breaking bread day, some housewives would keep a little dough and bake a small batch on the bakestone or griddle.  This batch loaf would be eaten fresh for tea on that day.  It was known as bara planc (Cwm Gwaun), bara mân (Bryn, Port Talbot), picen ar y lychwan (Tonyrefail), adopting the Welsh name used for the bakestone in specific areas.  Bara prwmlid was the name given to it in Pen-prysg, near Pen-coed.

Similarly, small batches would be baked on the floor of the oven.  Their sizes varied and the Welsh name by which these loaves were known again differed, e.g. bara bricen (Pren-gwyn), cwgen (Brynberian), torth gwaelod popty (Rhydymain), torth ar fflat y ffwrn (Ystalyfera), torth ar llawr y ffwrn (Kenfig Hill), sôts (Dowlias) and hogen (Bwlch-llan).

Bread

The Recipe

You will need

  • three and a half pounds plain flour
  • three teaspoonfuls salt
  • four teaspoonfuls sugar
  • one and a half pints warm water
  • one ounce yeast

Method

  1. Put the flour and salt in a warm bowl. 
  2. Cream the yeast and sugar and pour into a well in the centre of the flour. 
  3. Cover the yeast mixture with a little of the flour, and leave in a warm place until it becomes frothy. 
  4. Then proceed to mix the dough, adding the warm water gradually. 
  5. Knead well for about ten minutes until the hands and sides of the bowl are free of dough. 
  6. Cover the bowl and leave in a warm place until the dough has doubled its original size. 
  7. Then turn it out on to a floured board, divide and mould into loaves according to the size of the tins. 
  8. Put each loaf into a warm, greased tin and leave to rise again for another half hour. 
  9. Then bake the loaves in a moderately hot oven for approximately one and a half hours, according to size.

Breconshire.

Another common baking day custom was to keep a small quantity of the dough and use it as a base for a currant loaf cake. 

  1. The usual method of preparing it was to work a little lard, sugar and currants (according to taste) into the dough and knead it well. 
  2. It was then covered with a clean cloth and left to rise in a warm place (as for bread). 
  3. Finally it was shaped into a large loaf and baked in a tin in a moderately hot oven. 
  4. Alternatively it was divided into small batches or buns which were baked on the floor of the oven or on a hot bakestone. 

This particular cake or currant bread was known by different names, e.g. teisen fara (Tonyrefail), torth fach (Rhoslan), teisen dôs cwnnad (Bryn, by Port Talbot), cacen does (Llanbedr, by Harlech), teisen does (Bryncroes), torth gyrens (Llanuwchllyn), torth gri (Mynytho), bara cwrens (Brynberian), cwgen gyrens (New Quay), pics (Cross Inn), picen (Gelli-wen) and pice cyrens (Ystalyfera).

Film/Recording

An important record of the traditional method of baking bread in a pot oven.

In this edited version, Mrs Leis Rogers of Ffair-rhos is seen lifting dough which has already been mixed from a bowl onto the kitchen table. She then kneads it into a small round loaf, marks it with a knife, and then puts it into the pot oven to bake on the open fire. A lid is put on the pot, and blocks of peat from the fire are lifted with tongs from the fire to be placed carefully on the lid. An hour later, Mrs Rogers is seen lifting the lid of the pot oven with the tongs, taking care not to spill any of the ashes on the lid onto the loaf. The loaf has been successfully baked - she lifts it out of the pot oven and knocks the underside of it with her fist to test it before placing it on the table to cool.

Comments (4)

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Eluned Stalham
15 June 2020, 21:19
I am very happy to see Janet's query and your answer about the bread baked on the stove top. My mother used to keep some of the dough to make what we called a hogen. It would it be cooked on the hob of the rayburn and was delicious, especially when still warm with salty home made butter. It was the size of a supper plate and about two inches thick.
I'll have to try making one now.
Tregaron
Nia Evans Amgueddfa Cymru – Museum Wales Staff
11 March 2020, 10:50

Dear Janet Jones,

Thank you for getting in touch with us. I passed your message on to my colleague who is the Principal Curator for Historic Interiors, Social & Cultural History. She believes that the bread you described could potentially be either 'Griddle Bread' or 'Unleavened Bread'. I hope this information has helped in answering your question. 

Kind regards,

Nia
(Digital team)

Janet Jones
29 February 2020, 00:16
Our grandmother made Welsh bread. These were loaves of bread cooked on a stovetop griddle. They were like giant Welsh cakes, but were a heavy white bread with a thick crust. When sliced it was long and narrow. So delicious. Can you help us.
Ann BATH
7 September 2018, 16:25
I would love to have the recipe for Bakestone or batch made as a bread and cooked on a bakestone no tins used