Weekend visits to Nan’s, a canary-yellow tub of Stork in the fridge, hands in a cracked ceramic baking bowl – hers tobacco-stained and deformed, mine soft and still small, sisters as sous-chefs, the big brown Rayburn – warm bums, burnt fingertips, hot Welsh Cakes, melting butter, rounds of tea.
Welsh Cakes mean a lot to me. My nan definitely didn’t bake with local Welsh butter and sea salt, and my choice of cherries and almonds were replaced with the typical and delicious currants, but I’m pretty sure she’d still appreciate these. In fact, I’ll be baking her a fresh batch for her first visit, to go with her daily average of 20 mugs of PG tips
Cherry & Almond Welsh Cakes
Course: Dessert, Cakes and BiscuitsCuisine: BritishDifficulty: Easy6
servings10
minutes6
minutesIngredients
225 g self-raising flour
1 pinch of Welsh sea salt
1/2 tsp mixed spice
50 g caster sugar, plus extra for sprinkling
100 g Welsh butter
70 g dried sour cherries, chopped
30 g almond flakes
1 egg, beaten
Milk
Directions
- Mix the flour, salt, mixed spice and sugar together in a bowl. Using your fingers, rub in the butter until crumbly. Mix in the dried cherries and almond flakes. Add the egg and start working in into the mixture until you have a stiff dough. You may need to add a splash of milk if the mix seems dry and isn’t coming together.
- Roll the dough out on a lightly floured board, and stamp out rounds with a pastry cutter.
- Grease a traditional griddle or a heavy cast iron frying pan and place it over a medium heat. Cooks the Welsh cakes in batches, until golden brown and cooked through. They’ll begin to rise as they cook, and will take no longer than 3 minutes on each side.
- Serve immediately with. Sprinkling of sugar and thick slather of salted butter.
