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This is a pic and directions for Welsh Cakes from Emily Clark, who's in the Welsh language meetup group Ceri and I started going to in Portland. She did heart-shaped Welsh cakes and I thought they looked awsesome. She told me she got a set of varied-size heart cookie cutters at Target and that's what she used, see the picture at the bottom.
WELSH CAAAKES!
I use the recipe from the King Arthur Flour website, but I made a few changes to it that are small but noticeable, so I'll just send you the version that I do rather than link you to theirs:
Ingredients:
- 3 cups flour
- 1 cup sugar 2
- tsp baking powder
- 1tsp salt
- 1 tsp nutmeg
- 1 cup butter (2 sticks)
- 1 cup cranberries (traditionally currants but cranberries are preferred in my house!)
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 2 large eggs
Preparation:
- Pop the two sticks of butter into the freezer before you do anything else, because you'll need to grate them and having them frozen makes it a tiny bit less messy (you can not freeze them and cut them into pats when you're ready to add them to the mix, but I find that it's way, WAY easier just to grate them...mixes better).
- beat two eggs into a measuring cup, add vanilla extract, and then add milk until you've got 3/4 cup liquid.
- Mix together dry ingredients (flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, nutmeg).
- Grate one stick of butter into bowl of dry ingredients, then mix together until evenly dispersed/fairly crumbly.
- Grate in the second stick of butter, then mix again until fairly crumbly.
- Mix in cranberries (or currants).
- Add in the egg mixture, and mix until the dough is moistened. The easiest way I've found to do this without having a frustrating, sticky mess everywhere is to pour the mixture in, then turn the dough over and over with one of those long mixing spoons until it's mixed relatively well. Then I use my hands to squish all of the dough together until it's thoroughly moist and you can hold it all in a big ball. I hope that makes sense! It's a lot easier than trying to mix it all with a spoon, trust me.
- Turn your dough out onto a well-floured surface and cut it in half (you have to do this in two parts because it's enough dough to make a TON of cakes. Too much for one go!). Set one half aside.
- Roll out first half of dough until it's about 1/4" thick, then start cutting out your cakes! They can be any shape you want, I typically do circles. You'll have to constantly flour the cutter and the surface of the dough due to the supreme stickiness.
- Once you've got all of your cakes cut out of both halves of dough, start heating your pan. It's supposed to be done on a griddle, but if you don't have one then a skillet should do. We've got a pancake griddle that works perfectly. You want to heat it on a medium low-medium setting (I put it just below the 5, if your stove has numbers).
- Place cakes on the pan, and let sit for about 3-5 minutes depending on the heat of your stove. You'll know when to flip them because there won't be anymore sizzling butter around the bottom edge, and the top of them will be rounded and puffy, without much sweat left on them. When you flip them over, they should be golden brown on the bottom. If not, let the other side cook through and then flip it over again to brown the bottom a bit more, or else they'll fall apart more easily.
- Sprinkle the tops with sugar.
- Brew a pot of black tea, sit back, and enjoy.
AmeriCymru members and readers may have noticed that Ceri and I started another site: the Welsh-American Bookstore. This site reflects our love of Welsh books and writers and our desire to convert as many other people as possible to loving them.
Special, limited-time offer ad space on the Welsh-American Bookstore is now available to authors and publishers. Get your books, your company and yourself in front of the right audience.
T he Welsh-American Bookstore is a targeted book sales site, reaching a significant audience interested specifically in reading Welsh authors and Welsh books, and which is directly promoted to that audience on all social networks, including on AmeriCymru.
Twenty book cover spots are available in the right-hand column of the site. These spots are 110 pixels wide by 169 pixels tall and appear on each of the 5 ,0 0 0+ pages of the site. $30.00USD purchases a three-month ad in these spots, including a feature on you (or your company) and your book, which will be promoted in our newsletter and specifically on social network channels.
As an example of this size, an ad on the site now for Surfing Through Minefields , by the very excellent Bel Roberts.
Additionally, there are three ad spots available in the rotating banner above the fold on the front page. These ads are 660 pixels wide by 120 pixels high. This spot appears on article, interview and feature pages and the front page of the site. Three months on this spot is $50.00;
Our example, an ad for a Bel Roberts story in the upcoming Volume 2 of eto :
All advertisers will appear in our newsletter, which goes out to thousands of readers who are interested in Welsh writers and Welsh books, not just people on a random mailing list but people who've requested the newsletter or decided they want it.
Contact us at americymru@gmail.com to reserve your ad space now.
The Beef Seeds, a bluegrass quartet from Newport, are in a competition for best cover of "Wake Me Up," by Avicii -
Ceri's been bugging me to watch their videos all week and I kept not doing it until yesterday and then finally did and WOW!!! I love them, they're fantastic!
Please watch and vote for them -
Click this link to go to the page to vote for them!
http://www.ryanseacrest.com/2013/12/10/finals-vote-for-your-favorite-cover-of-aviciis-wake-me-up/
If you like bluegrass (I do) and even if you don't, they're still a fun group to watch and listen -
Last year, I decided I wanted a vase or two of beautiful, blooming daffodils on my table for St Davids Day. I knew you could force them to bloom indoors, out of season, so I started looking for directions.
Many websites have directions for forcing daffs indoors, in soil, 13 weeks ahead of when you want them to bloom. I wanted mine in water and rocks only, no soil, and I did it in twelve weeks, which was perfectly timed. If you want a vase of daffs on your table this March 1, try this about now:
Pick your daff variety. The classic daffodil is available all over but there are lots of cultivars: short-stemmed varieties, miniature jonquils, double blooms, short or long cups, different colors, many choices!
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In case you didnt already know, daffodils are a member of the Narcissus genus and they're all poisonous. Don't let children or pets eat any part of the plant and the sap can cause dermatitis in some people, especially wash your hands if you're handling a baby after you cut daffodils or get the sap on your skin.
We were very lucky to get a present of some Really Welsh Duffydils from some lovely people a few years ago and I used these. I did this last year and took pics - these bulbs were a couple of years old, a 2009 product. I was a bit worried they'd be dead and wouldn't produce blooms, because they were so old, but they weren't - they worked perfectly!
II couldn't tell from their site if they're selling daffs by mail order. I though they were but can't find it, but give them a try if you want daffodils from Wales.
The American Daffodil Society has pictures of many beautiful cultivars to look at and think about on their pages: http://www.daffodilusa.org/daffodils/div.html . They also have a list of suppliers you can order from , all over the world and including the UK, if you don't find what you want locally.
Wrap your daff bulbs in paper towels, root side down, and set them in open plastic sandwich bags in your refrigerator door. They should be stored at 35-45 - I think thats 2-7 -
At about six weeks or so, you should have some good roots and shoots on them.
Select your container. Make sure the one you select will support the variety of daffs you've chosen. It would probably be sensible to choose a deep container for big, long-stemmed varieties. I did one deep, one medium and one shallow. The flowers in the shallow container fell over a couple of times and wouldn't stand up at the end but before that, they looked frankly awesome in their low, glass bowl.
Take them out of the fridge and put them in a vase or container in a bed of pebbles or stones (or marbles or whatever), about two thirds up the bulb, root side down. Cover the rocks with cold water. They need light now, so move them to a cool spot in the winter sun, about 60 or 16 and watch them grow. It was mild where we live that winter, so I put them out on the porch.
When they get a bit tall and start to show blooms, move them to your table or wherever you're going to enjoy them (and show them off!).
They were bright and tall and beautiful, and they looked absolutely great on the table.
One hundred years ago tomorrow, at 8:00AM on the morning of 14 October 1913, a terrible series of explosions struck the Universal Coal Pit in the village of Senghenydd.
In that explosion, Senghenydd lost nearly its entire male population, almost 440 men and boys, to the largest mining disaster in the history of the UK, one of the most terrible in the world.
The disaster was believed to have been caused by "firedamp": a spark ignites methane gas and explodes, that explosion sucks coal dust on the floor into the air and ignites that into a larger explosion. In Senghenydd, each blast caused more coal dust to rise in a series of self-igniting explosions, which spread through the underground works of the mine and were followed by "afterdamp," deadly poisonous gases which replaced the missing air and oxygen.
Following the disaster, investigations of the mine found many safety faults by the owners and managers, who were fined only 24 for the lives of hundreds of fathers, sons, brothers, uncles and nephews.
Tomorrow, thousands of people will line the streets of Senghenydd to mark the 100th anniversary of the disaster.
A week of events which started on October 12th will include tomorrow's unveiling of a bronze statue of a rescue worker aiding a miner, created by sculptor Les Johnson, and the opening of a walled garden.
The garden will include a slate tile for each of the Senghenydd victims which will give their name, age and address and a "path of memory" made of tiles for each mining disaster in Wales that resulted in the deaths of five or more people with the name of the colliery, date of disaster and the number of victims.
You can find out more about the memorial and the events planned here:
http://your.caerphilly.gov.uk/abervalleyheritage/events
Book of the Day, 14 October -
Surfing Through Minefields by Bel Roberts - A Review
From our interview with Bel Roberts :- " Surfing Through Minefields belongs to the hybrid genre reality fiction. I have set the story in a fictional contemporary comprehensive school in Monmouth and have researched the facts surrounding the Senghenydd Pit disaster of 1913 in such a way that the history of the event is seen from the prospective of a modern teenager and by the residents of an old peoples home who have actual mementos of the tragic event. The heroine, Lauren, is an English teenager sent to stay with her grandmother in Wales while her parents sort out their various problems." ... read more here
One hundred years ago tomorrow, at 8:00AM on the morning of 14 October 1913, a terrible series of explosions struck the Universal Coal Pit in the village of Senghenydd.
In that explosion, Senghenydd lost nearly its entire male population, almost 440 men and boys, to the largest mining disaster in the history of the UK, one of the most terrible in the world.
The disaster was believed to have been caused by "firedamp": a spark ignites methane gas and explodes, that explosion sucks coal dust on the floor into the air and ignites that into a larger explosion. In Senghenydd, each blast caused more coal dust to rise in a series of self-igniting explosions, which spread through the underground works of the mine and were followed by "afterdamp," deadly poisonous gases which replaced the missing air and oxygen.
Following the disaster, investigations of the mine found many safety faults by the owners and managers, who were fined only 24 for the lives of hundreds of fathers, sons, brothers, uncles and nephews.
Tomorrow, thousands of people will line the streets of Senghenydd to mark the 100th anniversary of the disaster.
A week of events which started on October 12th will include tomorrow's unveiling of a bronze statue of a rescue worker aiding a miner, created by sculptor Les Johnson, and the opening of a walled garden.
The garden will include a slate tile for each of the Senghenydd victims which will give their name, age and address and a "path of memory" made of tiles for each mining disaster in Wales that resulted in the deaths of five or more people with the name of the colliery, date of disaster and the number of victims.
You can find out more about the memorial and the events planned here:
http://your.caerphilly.gov.uk/abervalleyheritage/events
Book of the Day, 14 October -
Surfing Through Minefields by Bel Roberts - A Review
From our interview with Bel Roberts :- " Surfing Through Minefields belongs to the hybrid genre reality fiction. I have set the story in a fictional contemporary comprehensive school in Monmouth and have researched the facts surrounding the Senghenydd Pit disaster of 1913 in such a way that the history of the event is seen from the prospective of a modern teenager and by the residents of an old peoples home who have actual mementos of the tragic event. The heroine, Lauren, is an English teenager sent to stay with her grandmother in Wales while her parents sort out their various problems." ... read more here
On his visit with us, Phil Rowlands brought us a great little statue of a coal miner and a little girl. It's called "The Welcome," it's carved out of Welsh coal and has a plaque on it which says it's part of the "Coal Heritage Collection." You can find these on Welsh gift sites but I wasn't able to find out who makes them. It's a great little statute and it's cool to hold it here in Oregon and know it's made of real Welsh coal.
I loaded up an image of the whole piece and three close-ups. Click on the pix to see full size. Because it's all black and shiny, it was a fun challenge to light and shoot to get any detail!
I have to massively thank Chris Keil, who brought us a whole fifth of delicious Penderyn Welsh whisky, and, amazingly, there was still some left when the guys all flew out of town. If you haven't ever had this, it's really good and smooth. And Mike Jenkins, who gave my daughter, Aria, an avid reader, a signed copy of his new book, Question Island , from Alun Books in Port Talbot, which she was very happy to get and took in to school to show off the next day.
I removed this blog I posted yesterday after having a nice walk this morning.
Yesterday we had a cranky troll on who objected to the AmeriCymru logo which I, the American, made and apparently my making it as I failed to know that the dragon on the Welsh flag is "sacred" and I have no right putting my obviously inferior, foreign, American hands or creativity on it.
I was an overly sensitive creative and went off to sulk. On my walk this morning, I thought about one of the things I said during my tantrum, which was that my job on AmeriCymru was "thankless" and I realized that it never has been. Hundreds of people have thanked me and I did them a disservice by forgetting to value their pleasure in the stuff we do over one cranky, incorrect and slightly unhinged troll's complaints.
That walk, that realization and Harold Powell's perfect response to my tirade this morning has fixed everything and I know that what I really need to do is to keep doing what we've been doing, more and better and, so, I realized the perfect response to this silliness is to make boatloads more "bastaradised" dragons - a bastaradised dragon for every country an AmeriCymru member lives in. :D
Here are some, below, I'll be presenting better, final versions later after I've had the time to make them and doing t-shirts in each on our perfection.com store and probably throwing public domain versions of them on wiki and you can all do what you want with these. The first ones I finish will be the flags of Canada (loooong overdue for all our beautiful and fabulous Canucks!), Uruguay for Virginia Sosa and all wonderful Welsh-Uruguayans, Argentina for the Mimosa and Claudio Vincent Williams and all wonderful Welsh-Argentinians, Mongolia for Emyr Pugh and any other Welsh-Mongolians! If you have a suggestion about the flag of your country design, tell me, I'd love to hear it! And, of course, I'll be doing England, for all the wonderful Welshies in England.
