When I started pushing myself out of my comfort zone and trying new foods every day, this was one of the first I tried. Me and my mum had been wondering round the charity shops on Portishead highstreet (I haven’t yet touched upon my absolute love for Charity Shops) and she voiced feeling fanciful so we wondered in to a little cafe.

I was faced with a glass fronted till display filled with the most lavish and enormous slices of cake in every colour and flavor imaginable, this all felt like a little bit too much for these early steps in my recovery. My eyes scanned the whole area, muffins, pastries, cakes, flapjacks and then my eyes were drawn to a little mound of Welsh Cakes.

If my memory serves me correctly I believe I did used to like and eat welsh cakes back in my 20’s but with little confidence in my memories prior to the last seven days I wasn’t sure. But I went with it, this was small, inoffensive and not dissimilar to the high carb and sugar foods I had been sticking to religiously.

We were handed our little paper bags, paid and left the shop. Always tentative with new foods I took a small bite and was pleasantly surprised, I had been right, I did like welsh cakes. This was the beginning of trying all sorts of food without being plagued with fear and dread, so I guess I owe it all to that little Welsh Cake.

Having never made them before I was keen to have a go, and I’m glad I did because It was a learning curve. The combination of the ingredients is pretty straight forwards but the actual cooking of them caused a few losses after charring them to death, the one thing I will stress is start the heat as low as possible, you’d rather wait longer than burn them to a crisp.

For ease I have designed a little recipe card which you can print at home or pop up on the screen of an iPad, you will find this at the end of the post.

Ingredients

• 225g Self-raising flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• Pinch of nutmeg or cinnamon
• 115g Chilled butter
• 85g Caster sugar, plus extra for sprinkling
• 85g Raisins or Sultanas
• 1 egg
• Milk if required
• Vegetable oil

Method

Sieve the flour, baking powder and nutmeg (I went with Cinnamon as a lover of the spice) into a large bowl.

Rub the cold butter into the dry mixture until it resembles fine bread crumbs, this took about five minutes of gentle rubbing and rather mucky hands (there is an image below of the consistency you are looking for)

Add the egg, sugar and dried fruit, then mix evenly with a spoon until it forms a firm but malleable lump. If you need more moisture add a teaspoon of milk. I personally didn’t need the milk, make sure you give it a really good mix and then get your hands involved again, it will come together in to a nice slightly sticky consistency.

Put your Frying pan on the cooker to warm. Please learn from my mistake and start with a VERY low heat, you’d rather increase it than chargrill your Welsh Cakes.

Use a piece of kitchen towel to spread a thin layer of vegetable oil onto your pan.

Sprinkle your working surface and rolling pin with flour and roll your dough to a thickness of half a centimeter or a 1/4 inch. Use your cutter to cut out as many rounds as you can and then pre roll and cut again until you have all the Welsh Cakes you are going to get out of the dough.

Place the first welsh cake in the pan, when you can see that the dough has become firmer after a couple of minutes, use a palette knife to flip your Welsh cakes. They should be golden brown in colour.

Once the other side has cooked, take your cakes off the heat and put them onto a plate sprinkled with caster sugar. Make sure they’re well coated with sugar while still warm, I filled a bowl with a mix of caster and granulated sugar so immerse them in, then placed them on the wire tray to cool completely.

Keep repeating this process of flipping and dusting in sugar until you run out of dough, and then enjoy. They will keep for up to five days in an airtight container in a cool cupboard.

I hope you enjoy making and eating them as much as I did. Here’s to the humble Welsh Cake!

You can download the Printable recipe below.

Love and Light as Always

Georgie