Friday, December 20, 2013

About Very Popular Welsh Cookies

Tags

By Eugenia Dickerson


Welsh cookies became very popular lately, but they really are traditional Welsh desserts. Although they taste very similar to ordinary cookies, you don't make them in the oven. Instead, you cook the dough on a pancake griddle. Easy to prepare and very tasty, these small snacks can be a perfect dessert after your lunch, or a nice breakfast choice.

A temperature controlled griddle can be very useful for baking these lovely snacks, but your thick pancake pan or a nonstick skillet are also quite good. The temperature should be around one hundred and sixty degrees, and your lovely little snacks need to become beautifully golden brown.

Every traditional recipe, and you will find a whole lot of them, contain a few basic ingredients. Regular flour and baking powder, and some baking soda, can be replaced with self raising flour, of course. In some recipes they use added baking powder anyway, to get fluffier cakes. Other traditional ingredients are raisins, currants, nutmeg, cinnamon, sugar, butter and eggs.

Welsh cookies are traditionally round shaped. You can make all other forms as well, of course. The dough should be rolled out to be at least one half inch thick, but not thicker than one inch, it's up to your taste. Too thin dough is easily burned, and too thick cannot be baked properly. Your cakes should be nicely golden brown.

Some recipes contain all kinds of berries, or even grated apples. Fresh fruits add moist, and your cakes will last longer and be tastier this way. Dried fruits can also be added, for example apricots. You should chop them to small pieces and add them in your mixture, together with your favorite spices.

Here is one old, traditional way of making these small delights. You will need 120 grams of butter, 120 grams of lard, 400 grams of flour, one large egg, 175 grams of sugar, some nutmeg, cinnamon salt and milk and 100 grams of currants. You will also need some baking powder and some baking soda. You can replace lard with the same amount of butter, if you like, or add ginger or coriander in your mixture.

You should prepare your dough just like you would prepare a pie crust, but a little bit moister. It means you should mix dry ingredients with the fat ones, until you get crumbs, and add egg and currants with as much milk as you need. You don't have to keep the dough in the freezer, but you can save it there for a day or two.

Frozen dough can be used just as it is fresh, once it gets near room temperature. You just have to roll it down to one inch or thinner, and cut it into rounds, or some other shapes. It is easiest to bake them on a temperature controlled griddle, but your pancake pan will be good enough. It is better to use thicker pan for this purpose, or a nonstick skillet.

These lovely Welsh cookies are widely popular thanks to their great taste. Try the original recipe, and then you can add your favorite spices to it, according to your own taste. It is not advisable to put chocolate in the mixture, but chocolate cream will taste great with both hot and cold desserts.




About the Author:




EmoticonEmoticon