Well, that didn’t go to plan

It’s true that pride goes before a fall, and although I wasn’t a particularly proud, I was confident, and I should have been less so. I wrote about bakestones – Welsh cakes, and how much I like them, and how i thought I would have a go at making some. It all seemed perfectly simple, few ingredients, skills i already had from making other baked goods, a clear idea of what the end product should look and taste like… so where did it go wrong, where did i go wrong? Actually what I made did taste ok and did disappear very quickly, but they didn’t taste like bakestones, the texture was wrong, and the flavour wasn’t quite right…

All the recipes I consulted had four basic ingredients, butter/margarine or lard, flour, sugar an egg to bind and optional currants/dried fruit/apple… Rub the dry ingredients together, mix with the egg, add currants or whatever, roll out, cut out, cook on a griddle.

I must admit the mixture did seem very soft and sticky… was the butter too warm, should I have chilled it first, had I not weighed carefully or correctly? The recipe said cook for three minutes on each side – well, it too longer than that so maybe I should have had the heat higher. They tasted like very thin scones, or sweet pastry, not a bit like they were supposed to.

I shall not be defeated, I shall try again! My first failure was eaten with appreciation, so I’m sure nothing will be wasted with further attempts until I get the perfect Welsh cake!

My featured image was a plate of bakestones made by the people in whose cottage we stayed – theirs were acme of excellence!