Golden Discs Speckled With Vine Fruits Steeped in Welsh History. (Tan Y Castell Welsh Cakes)

Member Name: Machair1

Product:	Tan Y Castell Welsh Cakes
Date:	12/05/09 (55 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Divine

Disadvantages: None

When I was in the sixth form at school we had a great common room in a specially built sixth form house, and we all brought our own lunches. This seems forever ago now, but I remember one special person who became a life long friend, and she always had home made goodies in her sandwich box. My absolute favourite thing she brought to school was Welsh cakes, and at first I had no idea what they were. Shaped like little circles and speckled with currants, which peeped out from behind a shield of twinkling caster sugar, these looked to die for, and they were!

She used to bring them with Wensleydale cheese, and this white crumbly affair together with a crisp Granny Smith apple would sustain her all afternoon, and I was always a tiny bit jealous as my box contained a yummy, but rather plain old cheese and pickle sandwich.

After a few months of seeing this I decided to ask her for the recipe, and to my delight I was able to make these tasty treats on the stove, and soon my lunches mirrored hers!

Welsh Cakes are a traditional Welsh delicacy, and they are cooked on a Welsh baking stone, which is a large round baking plate which sits on top of the hob, and is nowadays made from steel plate. Similar to a griddle these are superb for making anything like scotch pancakes or griddle cakes, as well as these traditional Welsh cakes. I have to confess I am still without one after years of cooking these, but I do have a very high quality German thick based pan, which replicates the conditions needed to make these well.

The trick is they must cook slowly and thoroughly without burning, and achieve a lovely golden sunset brown shade, which is difficult with a cheap frying pan.
If you are interested in buying a baking stone then I have seen them for sale
www.welshbakestone.co.uk


You can imagine how delighted I was to discover some supermarkets stocking ready made Welsh cakes. Marks and Spencer does a packet of six, rather small but exquisite little cakes, but my favourite has to be the Tan y Castell Welsh cakes stocked by Waitrose which are food for the gods!

They are made from self raising flour, sultanas and currants, sugar, non hydrogenated fats, eggs and lemon juice, so it pleases me to see no e numbers in there at all. Additionally they have no added salt either. Home made ingredients which create a home made product.

The packet retails for £1.19 for 6 and are made by Tan y Castell (foods) Ltd in Narberth in Wales to a traditional Pembrokeshire recipe, and my goodness have they got this off to a fine art! The packet is beautiful in cream, navy, and with the Welsh dragon logo, and a stack all wrapped up in a red tie, you can't fail to notice these nestled in the bakery and cakes aisles.

If you would like to visit their website have a look here.
www.welshcakes.com

Welsh cakes themselves have a long history and in olden times they were cooked on a stone over the fire. It must have been very cosy and warm sitting by the flames, and waiting for these melt in the mouth teatime treats to be ready!

So to the product and a taste test I have just conducted for probably the millionth time, as for most of this company's 12 year history of production, I have been eating them!

The cakes are half an inch thick and they sit neatly in their stack of 6. It seems so sad to dismantle it, but you have to in order to make inroads into what is an amazing little Welsh delicacy. The little currenty pancakes smell so fresh, almost as if they have just been fish sliced out of the pan. All they need is some good butter and some jam, and voila a tea time treat which is out on its own in terms of taste and freshness. These are every bit as good as mine and I am sure pricewise they probably beat home made, as they have economies of scale on their side.

As I mentioned earlier these are not just for a sweet treat, they make a lovely cheese canvas, and you can adorn them with Caerphilly if you really want to be Welsh, but any crumbly Lancashire or Cheshire is fine, and a sweet chutney will do nothing but enhance the taste experience. They do not sprinkle theirs with sugar like my home made version, which makes them more suitable for this too.

You can freeze them for up to 3 months and I have done this and they freeze beautifully and it is also possible to microwave them and serve them hot which I haven't done as I don't use microwaves myself.

If you fancy cooking them at home then you can easily have a go. I use a recipe which I found many years ago in a vegetarian book called Cranks.

This one uses whole-wheat flour so hopefully a bit more healthy!

275g wholemeal flour
½ teas baking powder
½ teas ground nutmeg
175g butter
75g raw brown sugar
75g currants
1 free range egg.

Method
Rub the flour, nutmeg and baking powder into the butter and add the other ingredients. Then roll out to ½ inch thick and cut out 3" rounds. (7.5 cms)
Then cook on a lightly buttered griddle, bake stone or heavy frying pan on a medium heat for 5 minutes on each side. Then serve sprinkled with caster sugar.

These are to die for but you really have to watch them if you attempt this with a cheap pan as they will burn and then not be done inside. They are also more spicy that the Tan y Castell ones which don't have added spices.

I haven't made these as often now as I prefer to buy these straight from the heart of Wales, they are cheap, delicious, and full of natural ingredients, and you are also helping to support a rural business in an economically challenged part of the UK.
They are always on my shopping list and probably responsible for some of my most delicious meals.

Please don't buy these if you have a nut allergy as they cannot guarantee them to be free from contamination from these.

They keep really well too and normally have a shelf life of a least a week when you buy them. We eat them so often I actually have a special tin which I just use for them, and my son really enjoys these and is munching his way through them while studying for his AS levels.

So in conclusion these delicious cakes are exceptional value and are versatile too.
This review is also posted on Ciao by myself under the user name Violet1278.

Summary: Not a pancake and not a scone but a gem in between!