Welsh Cakes - Mom

Being less versatile than a Scottish highland griddle scone didn't stop Welsh cakes from making a frequent appearance in our home when I was growing up.  Mostly because of my Dad's incessant requesting of them, he preferred them to scones because they are sweeter and richer.  I think in his mind a scone is meant to be dessert, unlike the rest of us with the mentality that scones start as the savoury part of lunch then become the sweet finish.  I can see his point, if you use bread to make a jam sandwich it's still a sandwich, it's not really dessert even if it is sweeter than a ham sandwich.  So when the lunch crowd became too big for one batch of scones the second batch was Welsh cakes and Dad was happy.
 
I had some difficulties getting things right in my practise runs on these and some research brought out one main difference between our family and the rest of the world in that everyone else seems to cut their scones with a round cutter then gather up the scraps and pat the dough out again.  We cut triangles, in the same tradition as Scottish scones, so the resulting conclusion was that my Welsh cakes were probably too big.  My other issue was that my griddle was again too hot, the griddle needs to be hotter than 3 on my stove but much cooler than 4, if I leave it on 3 it just seems to dry out the dough it doesn't brown or fluff up in the cooking, but switch to 4 for a moment and suddenly it's browned long before it has the chance to cook half-way through.  An electric griddle with a temperature gauge that moves up by actual temperature degrees is really your best bet but I live in London and homes are small, I don't have room for one, I barely have room for a dedicated scone pan. 
 
Just to give you an idea of what happens when the temperature goes really wrong, the cake has browned on both sides but the insides were still raw, really raw and in order to cook it through you need to balance it on its edges and keep cooking it, this one was so raw that balanced on edge the dough inside decided to conform to the laws of gravity and started sliding down to the lower edge bulging it out and, viola, wedge shaped cake - miniature people can go skiing on it.

Welsh Cakes

Heat your griddle to medium heat, this will take some playing around with to find the right temperature.

In a large bowl, combine the dry ingredients
3 cups of flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 cup sugar

Then cut in or rub in like you would for pastry
1 cup butter

Add the remaining wet ingredients
1 cup raisins  (the recipe says 3/4 cup raisins and 1/4 cup mixed peel but we never used mixed peel)
2 eggs
1/3 cup milk

Mix with a rubber spatula until it forms a stiff dough, don't be tempted to add more milk you're going to be patting this out with your hands and picking up pieces of it, it needs to be stiff.

Take your spatula and divide the dough in the bowl into quarters and kind of push/slap each quarter into sort of a smooth lump, even when stiff this dough is quite sticky but you don't want to knead it too much once it's mixed or it goes tough so I find some shaping in the bowl helps with handling.  Scoop out one of the lumps onto a well floured board or counter top and pat it into a round about 1/2 inch thick and cut into quarters using a sharp knife, you have to cut through the raisins a table knife or metal spatual won't do this.  If you have too much flour on them give them a flip back and forth in your hands before transferring to the griddle see the scone entry for an action photo if you need an illustration of what I'm talking about, I didn't have anyone around to take the picture for me today.

Cook on both sides on the medium heat griddle until golden brown and if you can still see raw dough on the edges it will be necessary to cook them on the edges too.  I don't know what people who cut rounds do when they need to keep cooking, score 1 for triangles.

When they're done, transfer to a wire rack to cool, brush any flour clinging to them off with a pastry brush or similar tool.

They're best to eat when they're still a bit warm, split them open and fill with butter and jam and be generous this is dessert after all!

Sandwich back together and munch away.