It s St David s Day on Saturday, and what could be more Welsh than Pat Maddocks traditional picau ar y maen or Welsh cakes, which homesick Welsh-men can now buy online?
The cakes are a sort of cross between a Scottish girdle scone and an English rock cake, in that the mixture (flour, sugar, butter, egg) is like the rock cake, and the method dropping the mixture onto a girdle or bakestone to dry fry it is just like a girdle scone. I saw my mum making them when I was nine, says Mrs Maddocks, a trained chef, who s in partnership with her chef husband, Tony. My dad, who was a steel worker, made my bakestone. [A bakestone is actually made of steel.] You need to put it on a low gas half an hour before. The bakestone is crucial it must be right.
She started up in Pontardawe, with help from Venture Wales, in July 2006. It was always my dream, and when my three children grew up, we decided to start up in my kitchen. She can now bake an astonishing 1,000 Welsh cakes per day, crumbly and light, and flavoured with spices, currants, sultanas or Penderyn Welsh whisky, all by hand . These sell in local cafes, hotels and farmer s markets, as well as online. The Maddockses have put their house on the market and are looking for something larger, where perhaps they could open their own coffee shop and larger kitchen. We sell all over the world, says Mr Maddocks. People ring about how they used to be made, and we ve had thank-you cards, too.
To buy online, visit www.cakesfromwales.com. A box of 20, from £9.99, will fit through a standard letterbox.
-
From California to Cornwall: How surfing became a cornerstone of Cornish cultureA new exhibition at Cornwall's National Maritime Museum celebrates a century of surf culture and reveals how the country became a global leader in surf innovation and conservation.
-
18 magnificent homes for sale from £550k to £20 million, as seen in Country LifeFrom a charming thatched cottage to a 300-acre estate with its own vineyard, here's our pick of places to come to the market via Country Life of late.
