The Griddle
Cakes & Pancakes section of the Teatime chapter was somewhat of a mixed bag,
containing several disappointments and one of the best, and possibly the most
cooked recipe in the whole book. Inside the chapter are some of the oldest and best-loved recipes in
England. Crumpets and Muffins are sole decedents of
yeast-leavened griddle cakes, prior to the invention of raising agents in the
mid-18th Century, and oatcakes have been made in England for millennia.
#113 Muffins
We usually think of griddle cakes as leavened mixtures and pancakes as unleavened, like a crepe, but really it seems like these two terms really mean nothing; there are thin batters, thick mixtures with or without raising agents called pancakes it seems.
Wherever they lie on the pancake-griddle
cake spectrum, they were typically baked on a thick cast iron skillet, griddle
iron (also called a girdle) or
bakestone. These days, bakestones are too made of cast iron, but they were once
made from smooth flat stones which, once made hot in coals, could retain their
heat and cook many cakes evenly and efficiently.
King Alfred burns the cakes
It is these sorts of cakes that in the Dark
Ages, Alfred the Great, King of Wessex, famously burned when he took shelter
after battle in a poor woman’s home. Not knowing who he was, she asked him to
watch them as she sent out to collect more wood for the fire. Distracted working out future strategy, he got a stern
telling off when she returned and found them blackened. Full story here.
Although this is a book of English food,
there are several Welsh recipes, and they are much superior to the English
ones. The highlight of this part of the book is Welsh Light Cakes; lovely frilly griddle cakes made with tangy
soured cream. Not recommended however, is the West Yorkshire Riddle Bread, boring, rubbery, bland, and just
unpalatable; they were a mystery (a riddle?) to me. I must admit I was not very confident
cooking many of the recipes at the beginning of the project and really I should
revisit them – the best will be reblogged on the ‘other’ blog at some point. Singin’ Hinnies are first in the queue.
#417 Riddle Bread
Because of me – ahem – misinterpreting some
of the early recipes, the recipes in this section score the lowest mean of the
completed parts so far, with an average of just 6.4 overall. Below are all of
the recipes as they appear in the book with hyperlinks to my posts and their
individual scores.
#371 Oatcakes 8/10
#260
Potato Cakes 7/10
#113 Muffins 7/10
#145
Singin’ Hinnies 3.5/10
#278
Crempog Las 7.5/10
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