Neil Cooks Grigson: 7.3 Griddle Cakes & Pancakes

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-18^th 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

#417 West Yorkshire Oatcake or Riddle Bread 2/10

#260 Potato Cakes 7/10

#113 Muffins 7/10

#110 Elizabeth David’s Crumpets 6.5/10

#145 Singin’ Hinnies 3.5/10

#242 Cacen Gri (Griddle Cakes) 5/10

#346 Pice ar y Maen (Welsh Cakes on the Stone) 8/10

#119 Gloucester Pancakes 5/10

#97 Welsh Light Cakes or Pancakes 9/10

#13 Pancakes for the Rich, or a Quire of Paper 6.5/10

#25 Harvest Pancakes for the Poor 8/10