Welsh Cakes

My Granny was Welsh, she made great Welsh Cakes... and I remember making them with her.   However, Welsh Cakes are usually made on a griddle, a flat iron plate, which I don't have.  Having a new 'ceramic non-stick' frying pan, we needed a recipe to try out its non-stick properties and Welsh Cakes fitted the bill nicely.

I don't have my Granny's recipe but I do think the one I made up is pretty close... apart from using gluten free flour (which I don't think existed back in Granny's day!)

The ingredients we used were:-

225g self raising flour  (we used Dove's Farm gluten free)
pinch of salt
1 teaspoon mixed spice
110g butter (Granny used to use lard)
75g caster sugar
75g mixed currants
1 large egg beaten

Using a bowl, we mixed the flour, salt, spice and butter.  We used a hand balloon whisk to get a breadcrumb-like texture (and this also 'saves' my ailing fiingers from too much effort)

Next the sugar and currants were added and mixed through.


Finally the beaten egg was added.  At this point, the mix it may be a bit dry still, so if needed, use a little buttermilk or yogurt, to make the dough soft enough to be able to brought together (we did add yogurt to ours).

Once the dough came together and wasn't too wet or dry.  We lightly pressed it out, then rolled to about 5-7mm thick.  The dough was then cut in 5cm rounds.

Heating the pan, the cakes were cooked - you can use a heated griddle, lightly buttered frying pan, or as we did in a ceramic coated frying pan (it worked very well.

Cooking till browned on one side, the cakes were flipped/turned and cooked on the other side (about 3 mins a side... but depends on heat, thickness and the level of 'cook' you're aiming for).

Once cooked on both sides, the cakes were removed, placed on a plate and drizzled lightly with caster sugar.

Eaten warm, they were delicious.  They were also very tasty with a cup of tea and, surprisingly, kept well in an airtight container.

Griddled Asparagus wrapped in Parma Ham

 We were able to visit the not-too-distant farm shop called the Shop in the Shed which stocks a good selection of gluten free goodies (of note are the breads from the Wheat Free Bakery Direct) recently.  The asparagus season had just begun on the farm and we were given a bunch (a very generous one) of freshly cut spears.

Generally, less is more when it comes to dealing with fresh produce, so we decided to make a very simple 'recipe'... just two ingredients - Parma Ham and asparagus.  Simplicity itself.

The asparagus spears were prepared by a quick wash, then the stems were bent untill they snapped (during and after shot shown!).







Next the stems were wrapped in Parma Ham.  We used just enough ham to wrap the stem once, getting about three stems wrapped in a slice but obviously this will depend on the size of the stems of asparagus.

Whilst we were wrapping the asparagus stems, we'd heated the griddle pan so it was sizzling hot by the time they were ready.

The wrapped stems were placed on the griddle and turned about every 2 minutes (we did this 3 times but, again, this will depend on the thickness of the asparagus spears being used).

After cooking, the ham had taken on a lovely seared appearance and the asparagus was starting to wilt.  Stacking the spears in a dish, they were ready to be eaten.  They didn't last long as asparagus is one of Sous Chef J's favourite vegetables.

This is a really simple and tasty way to serve asparagus and would also work well if it was prepared ahead and cooked on a barbecue if there's sunny/dry weather about.

Black Garlic and Chilli Butter

We like to get Sous Chef J to try new foods, so when we were sent a bulb of Black Garlic by Sainsbury's we started to think about how to use it in a way he'd like to eat it.  Hitting on the idea of a spicy butter to go with a beef steak, we took a closer look at the garlic.

The Black Garlic bulb is a light rust colour and its outer skin texture resembles tissue paper.  We carefully peeled away part of the outer layer of cloves.  Having taken the cloves off the bulb, some were then peeled (we found starting at the root end resulted in the 'cleanest' way to do this) and that's when the blackness of the garlic was revealed.

The cloves are soft and squidgy feeling...we were careful not to squash them but I did try one.  It reminded me of the cloves of garlic we'd all wait for when my late father used to make a slow cooked one-pot dish called "Chicken with 40 cloves of garlic".  As the name suggests, a chicken was cooked in a lidded casserole with 40 cloves of garlic (unpeeled) and the resulting melt-in-the-mouth middle of the cloves that were squeezed out to be eaten with the chicken were amazing.  The slow cooking had mellowed the garlicky taste and this Black Garlic clove has a similar, less aggressive, taste.


Gathering the very few items needed to make our Black Garlic and Chilli Butter...

4 cloves Black Garlic (peeled)
1/4 teaspoon chilli flakes
50g unsalted butter (softened)

... they were put in a bowl where they were mashed together (our butter had part-melted in the warm Easter sunshine so it looks a bit messy).  The butter was then seasoned with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper.

By this point the butter was looking quite liquid and needed chilling.  With this in mind we wrapped the butter in clingfilm and made a sausage shape. It was then put it in the freezer to chill.  If we'd had more time, we'd have put it in the fridge to use later.

Having fried our steaks, a ring of butter was cut from the roll, placed on the steak and allowed to melt into a delicious garlicky, buttery, spicy mix.  YUM!   Great to use for speedy BBQ seasoning too.