Welsh Cakes

I'm late; Tuesday March 1st was St David’s day so I should really have made these cakes then. I’m not Welsh, but we once lived in North Wales for a few years and I'm shameless enough to use any excuse for a little treat!

Having said that I’m not Welsh, this recipe most definitely is; it comes from a lady who was born, lived her whole life and died, in a small Welsh mining village: my husband’s Grandmother, Jane. Sadly, she’s been dead now for a number of years but she was a really lovely lady. She brought up a family of six children in a three bedroom miners’ cottage and cooked every meal on a Victorian coal-fired range, although she had a perfectly good electric cooker which was in pristine condition because she never used it!

I hope she’d be pleased at my effort at making her recipe, although I think she’d probably say they needed more spice. I’ll try to get it right next time.

8oz self-raising flour
4oz butter
3oz caster sugar
½ tsp mixed spice
3oz dried fruit
1 large egg
extra caster sugar for dusting

Rub butter into flour, sugar and spice, add fruit then add the egg and mix to a dough. Add a drop of milk if needed.

Roll out dough to ¼ inch thick and cut into rounds with a 2 inch cutter. Grease a heavy frying pan and cook for 3-4 minutes each side. Dust thickly with caster sugar while still warm.

The original recipe was in ounces and I haven’t made any attempt to convert it; if it was good enough for her, it’s good enough for me. I don’t think milligrams had been invented when Jane first started making these!