Aberffraw cakes

These were mentioned recently on the GBBO, so I thought I'd find out more about them. They're made on the Isle of Anglesey and are a traditional biscuit really, not a cake. They're served sprinkled with sugar and even with cream and jam, like a scone.
The bit I liked was that a scallop shell is pressed into the top to give it a shell-like pattern. Nowadays, a lot of the Aberffraw cakes have the pattern put on with a knife. I have a bag of scallop shells, brought back from France so I used a genuine one to make my pattern.
The recipe is a 3.2.1  - quite common for biscuits. This means 3 parts flour to 2 parts fat to 1 part sugar.

175g flour
110g butter
55g caster sugar
a little milk
more caster sugar for sprinkling over

Preheat oven 190C/gas5.
Grease a baking sheet.

I used a processor to make my dough.

Put flour and sugar in a bowl and rub in the butter. Bind together with a litle milk to make a soft dough.
Roll out and cut out circles. I used a 7cm cutter and made 12 cakes.
Use a scallop shell to press the scallop pattern onto the top, or cut the pattern with the back of a knife.



Put the cakes to cool on a wire rack and sprinkle with sugar. You can eat them served with cream and jam, but they're delicious as they are.


They have a nice crunchy texture, and the butter gives them a rich flavour.

Comments

Suelle said…
Wow! Using the shell like that has worked really well. On the Great British Bake Off, it looked like the ball of dough was pressed into the shell, but that would make a shape with an uneven thickness, so your way probably works better for even baking.
I too saw the program as I was home for a holiday. I'm glad you have road tested them, I bought the book and this was one of the things I hoped to make, the other was the chocolate mallows.
Norm said…
Oh yes, I was intrigued by these too (on GBBO). They look so pretty!
Lovely stuff - I really like that decoration. I'm afraid that I'm so out of touch these days that I didn't know what GBBO was until it was explained to me.
I love the shell pattern, makes them look really special
StinaLynn81 said…
How long do they cook in the oven for?

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