How To Make Welsh Cakes (Picau Ar Y Maen)

To explain my life-long love affair with Welsh Cakes, I'll start with a bit of family history to set the scene!

My mother's family come from Pontypridd, a town in the Rhondda Valley in South Wales .

My family were coal miners and my mother's father and older brothers all worked in the Albion Colliery in Cilfynydd, a village near Pontypridd. My grandfather was seriously injured in a coal mining accident and eventually died as a result.

When another mining accident injured one of my uncles, my grandmother vowed that the mines would not claim any more victims from amongst her family and almost overnight she moved her family lock, stock and barrel virtually as far away as she could travel.

The only means of travel available to her was the railway and she got as far away as she could. Not feeling she could cope with a big city after life in the Welsh Valleys, she got off the train at the furthest point away from Wales before the railway entered London - the town of Slough in Berkshire about 20 miles west of London.

Slough is an industrial town and there were plenty of (safer) jobs there for her older children and best of all, many other Welsh people who had moved for economic reasons.

So it was that I was brought up many years later amongst a community of "Welsh ex-patriots" who kept their roots and traditions very much alive...and that included the cooking, of which making Welsh Cakes was a regular part.

My mother's electric cooker was specifically chosen because instead of the usual four rings on the hob, it had a rectangular griddle - perfect for Welsh Cakes (or "bakestones" as they were known in my family). My aunts all had cast iron bakestones, either inherited, sent or brought back from Wales on visits "home". Wales WAS still their home...in their hearts, if not physically.

Just seeing a Welsh Cake now brings back so many memories of people and times long since gone.

I eventually married a Welsh man who is as much of a Welsh Cake fan as I am :)

I think also that for anyone with Welsh origins, Welsh Cakes are a symbol of Wales, every bit as much as the Welsh flag, Y Ddraig Goch (the Red Dragon), daffodils or leeks :D

Doing research for this page brought up time and time again, people recounting fond memories associated with Welsh Cakes - just look at the Twitter feed at the bottom of the page - there's usually someone who's recently Tweeted about happy memories associated with eating Welsh Cakes!

Welsh Cakes - Celtic Comfort Food...read on and enjoy...and I hope you're inspired to try some Welsh Cakes yourself!

* photo of Pontypridd above showing the road where my grandmother lived, used under Creative Commons from Irregular Shed

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*Photo of Welsh Cake dough used under Creative Commons from TheLizardQueen

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*Photo of Welsh Cake being cooked used under Creative Commons from TheLizardQueen

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My Welsh friend came round in a state of great excitement last weekend (the time of writing this is late Jan 10)...he'd found Welsh Cakes in M&S!

Without further ado, the packet was seized, ripped open and the goodies consumed...

Our verdict...he thought they were very nice, I thought they were a bit dry and had slightly too much nutmeg for my personal taste and my OH (who's not of Welsh extraction and therefore isn't really qualified to judge!) thought they were "OK"!



Overall rating: 7.5 out of 10 :)
Great for anyone needing a quick "Welsh Cake fix" - but probably not as good as Mam used to make!

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