Welsh Cakes

Ingredients

Equipment Needed

• •Heavy cast-iron frying pan or flat griddle
• •6cm round cutter
• •Rolling pin
• •Palette knife
• •Wire cooling rack

Instructions

1. 1

   Rub in the butter

   Tip the flour, mixed spice, and salt into a wide bowl. Add the cubed butter and rub it into the flour with your fingertips, lifting your hands as you go to keep things cool and airy. Stop when it looks like rough breadcrumbs with a few larger flecks of butter still visible. Those flecks are friends. They're what makes the cakes tender.

   Cold butter, cool hands, light touch. This is the same instinct as making pastry. If your kitchen is warm, run your hands under the cold tap first and dry them well.
2. 2

   Add sugar and currants

   Stir in the sugar and the currants, mixing them through the flour with a knife or your hand until they're evenly scattered. It should smell faintly of spice and butter already. That's a good sign.

3. 3

   Bring it together

   Pour in most of the beaten egg and bring the mixture together with a knife, then with your hand, into a soft but not sticky dough. If it feels dry and won't quite hold, add the rest of the egg, or a small splash of milk. You're after the texture of shortcrust pastry: firm enough to roll, soft enough to give under a thumb. Don't knead it. Just gather it.

   Welsh cakes turn tough the moment you start working the dough. Treat it like scones. Light hands, quick movements, and the moment it comes together, stop.
4. 4

   Roll and cut

   Lightly flour the worktop. Roll the dough out to about a centimetre thick. Not thinner. They want a bit of body to them. Cut into rounds with a 6cm cutter, gather the trimmings, gently re-roll, and cut again until the dough is used up.

5. 5

   Heat the pan

   Set a heavy frying pan or a flat cast-iron griddle over a low to medium heat and let it warm up properly. This takes a few minutes. The pan needs to be hot enough to colour the cakes but not so hot that it scorches them before they cook through. Rub the surface with a little butter or lard, just enough to grease it, not enough to fry. If the pan smokes, it's too hot. Pull it off the heat for a minute and start again.

6. 6

   Cook until golden

   Lay the cakes onto the hot pan, leaving a little space between them. They take about three minutes on the first side, sometimes a bit longer. Trust your nose. When the kitchen starts to smell of warm butter and currants, lift one with a palette knife and check the underside. You want a deep, even gold, the colour of toast made properly. Flip them, and give the second side the same. Press a finger gently to the top: they should feel set, springy, just a little soft in the middle. Slightly underdone is better than over.

   If the first one comes out pale and dry, your pan was too hot and they cooked too fast. If it's burnt outside and raw inside, same problem. Adjust the heat between batches. The second batch is always better than the first.
7. 7

   Sugar and serve

   Lift the cooked cakes onto a wire rack and dust them generously with caster sugar while they're still warm. Eat one immediately, standing at the counter, with a cup of tea you'd already put on. This is the best one. The rest will be very good too, but the first one off the pan is its own kind of reward.

Chef Tips

• •The heat of the pan is the only thing that matters here, and the only thing you can get wrong. Too hot and they burn outside before the inside catches up. Too cool and they go pale and dry. Aim for low to medium, and adjust as you go. The first cake is your test cake. Treat it like one.
• •Mixed spice is the traditional choice, that warm British blend of cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, and a little clove. If you only have cinnamon, use cinnamon. The world won't end. But proper mixed spice gives them the right kind of nostalgia.
• •Currants, not raisins, not sultanas. Currants are smaller, drier, and tarter, and they hold their shape inside the cake without going soggy. It's worth keeping a bag in the cupboard for this and for nothing else.
• •Eat them the day they're made if you possibly can. They keep for two or three days in a tin, but they're at their best within an hour of coming off the pan, while the sugar is still clinging and the inside is still soft. A quick warm-through in a low oven brings the day-olds back to life.

Advance Preparation

• •The dough can be made a few hours ahead and kept covered in the fridge. Let it sit at room temperature for ten minutes before rolling so it isn't fridge-cold and brittle.
• •Cooked Welsh cakes keep in an airtight tin for up to three days. Warm them briefly in a low oven, or split and butter them like a teacake, which is its own kind of pleasure.
• •They freeze well, layered between sheets of parchment, for up to a month. Defrost at room temperature and refresh in a low oven for five minutes.

Frequently Asked Questions

Nutrition Information

1 serving (about 30g)