Welsh Cakes

Despite my best attempts to avoid it, every now and then, I am overcome with a need for something British. Of course I mean food, the usual preoccupation. Lack of an oven stops a huge number of things that would be possible even with locally purchased ingredients. Some volunteers, mainly in the north, do have ovens. I have seen one in Navrongo which is identical to the Belling I used at university twenty years ago. Cakes and biscuits are a big loss but I reckoned I could make Welsh cakes or a close approximation. I needed to check quantities, so first I Googled them and downloaded a recipe from the BBC website.

225g/8oz self-raising flour, sieved – I had plain flour and baking powder from Shoprite in Accra. Flour is sold loose in the street but it can be a bit hit and miss. Not sieved as no sieve.

110g/4oz (preferably Welsh) salted butter – preferably Welsh, but actually French from the chilled cabinet in Intermart, Koforidua

1 egg – no problem

handful of sultanas – Shoprite again and sitting in the fridge since January when they seemed useful.

milk, if needed – not needed fortunately

85g/3oz caster sugar - granulated

Without a measuring device not even a table spoon, the quantities were guess work. I rubbed the butter into the flour in a large metal measuring cup. I added and mixed the remaining ingredients and floured the table. Rolling pin substituted with a glass jar that had previously contained ludicrously expensive green apple pulp (but Accra was the only place I had seen it outside Italy). My paper thin wok could not be described as a heavy iron griddle but on the lowest possible gas, I managed to produce something that wasn’t too burnt on the outside and wasn’t too underdone on the inside. The whole exercise provided a sense of achievement which just about compensated for the effort and improvisation involved.