Bring on the batter
Pikelets recipe
“If anything can be said to have endured from the ‘old days’ of Welsh cookery in addition to cawl, it is the love of pancakes, in all their many forms… Being quickly made, they could be whipped off the bakestone at a moment’s notice, and were a traditional offering to unexpected visitors,” says doyenne of Welsh cooking Bobby Freeman in her 1980 encyclopaedic book First Catch Your Peacock. I’m not sure that many of us would think of rustling up a batch of pancakes on the fly now when someone knocks on the door, when a custard cream or a Jaffa cake will suffice, but I think the idea of using batter as a base for sweets and savouries still holds true.
Regardless of the meat on the Sunday dinner, we’ve always had Yorkshire puddings – although these tend to be of the flat cake-like version – and any leftovers eaten cold the next day dipped in gravy or spread with jam. And of course, pancakes appear at least once a year in the kitchen, if not cropping up other times as a treat. I remember my granddad making them in a big cast-iron pan for my brother and I when we were little. They were always cooked in lard and dotted with currants, then sprinkled with granulated sugar and a squeeze of Jif lemon before being rolled up.
Is that a Welsh thing – putting dried fruit in pancakes (actually in the batter as they cook)? It certainly seemed that way on the first Pancake Day in my university digs. Out of five living in the house, two of us were Welsh. As I went to throw a handful of currants in, only Jess didn’t gawp and ask what I was doing, backing me up that pancakes always have fruit in. To the rest, thin plain pancakes (I would consider them crêpes) with lemon and sugar were the true version of a pancake. I don’t know why I was so shocked, as even in Wales there are countless versions of batter cakes.
In Welsh recipe books you tend to find smaller, thicker versions, probably due to the tradition of cooking on a bakestone – it’s very difficult to spread batter and much easier to drop it on by the spoonful. Traditional Welsh pancakes were stacked high, slathered with butter and cut into quarters to be served as a wedge. But there are also leicecs (smaller buttermilk pancakes), slapan and yeasted crempog (a sturdier pancake, split in half when cooked and – you’ve guessed it – spread with butter), ffroes (similar to a Scotch pancake or drop scone), crempog geirch (pancakes thickened with oatmeal), and the standard pancakes most of us make come Shrove Tuesday.
Speaking of Shrove Tuesday, it would be remiss of me not to mention my Nanna Lena. She was the most wonderful storyteller and one of her favourite tales, which all of my very large Welsh family and anyone else who would listen will have heard countless times, was this tale of Pancake Day:
Poppa (my granddad) had been sent by my Nan to the local shop to buy Jif Lemon to put on the pancakes that Nanna and I (aged about 4) were making in the kitchen. I was standing on a chair at the worktop stirring the batter in Nanna’s big Mason Cash mixing bowl as Nanna stood next to me at the stove with the frying pan. As Poppa walked back in through the front door, I leaned on the side of the bowl, which tipped up and its floury, eggy, batter-y contents went all over me (a big deal to a four-year old). I was on the brink of tears when Poppa came down the hallway (‘passage’ as my grandparents would have said) through to the kitchen, and proclaimed, “How do? What’s going on here then?” before picking me up and standing me straight in the kitchen sink, and ruffling my hair – the only part of me not covered in batter. Nanna recalled that I looked up sorrowfully and said, “Well, accidents do happen Nan”, to which they both laughed. Out of the mouth of babes and all that! After a quick change of clothes, Poppa cleaning off my shoes and Nanna whipping up another lot of pancake batter at double speed, we ate pancakes (complete with currants, obviously). The chair I was standing on to reach the worktop got taken into the garden and deftly and swiftly cleaned with a bucket of soapy water by poppa. All’s well that ends well.
The Recipe
Pikelets
Not wanting to start a debate, but this week’s recipe is of the batter kind, but I’m loath to call it a pancake. Pikelets – or at least the word – is Welsh in origin. According to Collins, the word is of 18th century origin and comes from the Welsh, bara pyglyd. They are popular across the world and are a near relative to a crumpet, except pikelets are free formed unlike their moulded circular cousin. My Nannie Gwenyth called both sorts pikelets, although she was not Welsh speaking. She always served them oozing with butter and that is how I’d suggest you serve these.
Ingredients (makes about 15)
500g plain flour
7g fast-action yeast
1tsp salt
1tsp sugar
350ml warm milk
250ml warm water
2tbsp oil (vegetable or sunflower is best but olive oil if fine if that’s all you’ve got in the cupboard)
Method
In a large bowl, mix together the flour, yeast, sugar, and salt.
Add the milk, water and oil and mix well for a few minutes until you have a smooth batter and everything is well combined.
Cover with a clean tea towel and leave to rise for 1.5 hours or until it has doubled in size and looks bubbly.
Knock back with a spoon, cover again and leave for a further 30 minutes.
Heat a bakestone or heavy-based frying pan on a medium heat. When hot, drop ladlefuls of the mix onto the hot surface. They will expand slightly to form rough circles about 10cm in diameter (or about the size of a roll of sticky tape).
Allow to cook slowly (around 3-5 minutes) until the top is dry and full of holes. Flip over to gently brown the tops.
Eat hot off the bakestone with lashings of salty butter or reheat later using a toaster.
As with any sort of pancakes, they are good sweet or savoury. Try sandwiching two together with jam, or use them as a base for eggs and bacon for brunch.
Don’t forget to tag any photos with #mywelshkitchen if you decide to give them a go.
The Playlist
To me, cooking and music go hand in hand, whether that’s singing at the top of your voice using a wooden spoon as a microphone while waiting for pasta to boil, or dancing around with the oven gloves on as the oven timer counts down. Here are this week’s ideas for your Welsh Kitchen playlist.
First up this week is a brand new video by some of my fellow choristers in Côr Y Boro (Borough Welsh Choir) with their take on the sea shanty that’s been making the rounds on social media. Here’s The ‘Welsherman’.
For the playlist, we’ve got a very traditional Welsh lullaby by 13-year-old Cai Thomas. Film fans might recognise it from Steven Spielberg’s Empire of the Sun, which starred Haverfordwest’s very own Christian Bale. The second this week is an upbeat number with a bluesy-jazz feel from Pembrokeshire-born Jodie Marie.
Suo-Gân by Cai Thomas
I Got You by Jodie Maris
The Pantry
Good food is nothing without good ingredients and thankfully there are plenty of fantastic Welsh products on the market. Here is where you’ll find recommendations to stock up your cupboard, fridge or fruit bowl.
Barti Ddu Spiced Rum
Last week I was talking about warming spices and this week we have a gloriously spiced rum as my Welsh product of the week. Barti Ddu is flavoured with vanilla, clove, orange and handpicked laver seaweed from the Pembrokeshire coastline. The name? Well, it comes from the most successful pirate of the golden age of piracy, John Roberts (nicknamed Black Bart – Barti Ddu) who was born in Little Newcastle, near Fishguard and died this week in 1722. Over his lifetime he captured over 400 ships and over £50 million of loot. He always wore a crimson waistcoat and finery and it’s believed the rather grand image of a pirate captain we have these days comes from him – as did the pirate code. Pirates aside, I like this rum over ice with a good twist of orange peel.