Welsh Honey Cakes, Tiessennau Mel, for St. David's Day March 1st

The simplicity of the look and recipe for these little Welsh Honey Cakes, Tiessennau Mel in Welsh, belies their deliciousness - they are absolutely wonderful and quite unique in a very subtle way. You'll have to bake them to see what I mean. I made them in honour of Saint David's Day - the feast day of Wales. I found this recipe, which I have adapted slightly, by V'nut-Beyond Redemption on Food.com. They taste very good dunked in a nice hot cuppa - if you are so inclined and would give Proust and his Madeleines a run for their money!

UPDATE: I've been tapping my maple tree, yes just the one, and made these lovely cakes with my own Maple Syrup instead of honey and they were equally as delicious and good.

 INGREDIENTS for 6 little muffin cakes:

recipes doubles perfectly

2 ounces/ 3/8 cup honey - a really flavourful honey is best,
or maple syrup if you'd like

 1/4 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

2 ounces/ 1/2 stick butter ( I always use salted because I like that flavour in my baked goods and still I add a little more salt to brighten the flavour - goes well with honey!)

2 ounces/ 1/3 cup sugar

1 egg separated

1 tablespoons milk

4oz/ 1 cup flour

a pinch of salt

DIRECTIONS:

 
1. Preheat oven to 375F/190C

2. Grease and flour a muffin tin

3. Sieve together flour, cinnamon and bicarbonate of soda.

4. Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. 

5. Separate the egg yolk from the white.

6. Beat the yolk into sugar and butter, then add the honey in three goes beating well in between.

7. Stir in the flour with a little milk as required to make the batter a little softer and mix all together gently. 

8. Whisk the egg white until stiff and fold into mixture in three goes - the mix is quite stiff so do this part very gently so as to not pop all your hard earned bubbles.

9. Half fill the 6 cups of the muffin tin and smooth the tops with the back of a wet teaspoon to stop them from crowning too much then sprinkle each with a teaspoon or so of sugar.

10. Bake in the pre-heated oven for about 20 minutes. These do brown quickly and are actually browner than a similar cupcake or muffin would be but do keep your eyes on them so they don't get too brown or burnt.

11. Leave the cakes in the tin for a few minutes before turning out to cool

And there you have your little Welsh Honey Cakes or Tiessennau Mel. You could if you liked break them in two and butter but I really didn't feel like mine needed that but it wouldn't hurt to try them that way! I do hope you make these, please let me know if you do and feel free to post your pictures on my FACEBOOK PAGE. Thanks!!

Some more pictures of the yumminess:

If you are interested in my "Blue Rhapsody" design, featured as the background of these pictures, you can find it at my Spoonflower shop HERE and my CafePress shop HERE

Wales/Cymru is a spectacular country, I visited there often as a child - it is well worth the visit if you ever get the chance. Home of stunning Snowdonia:

 The Welsh flag:

The daffodil is the Welsh National flower:

My Daffodil painting available over at my Etsy shop HERE

and LEEKS are the National emblem :) Here's a LINK to some of the Welsh celebrations for their National Day.

SO....
"Dydd Gwyl Dewi hapus!" 

Other Saint David's Day recipes I have done for my blog:

Monmouth Pudding

Welsh Cakes

Snowdon Pudding

Bara Brith - Welsh raisin teabread

Monmouth Pudding for Saint David's Day March 1st

Meringue, raspberry jam and a version of bread pudding underneath.

Happy Saint David's Day March 1st - National Day of Wales 

"Dydd Gwyl Dewi hapus!"

 The National symbols of Wales (Cymru in Welsh - pronounced come-rye) are the daffodil and leeks and even though there are no daffs growing in Maine yet (we're expecting 5-8" of snow tonight :(((() here are some pictures of mine from last year. If you click on the title link above you'll find lots of info about Cymru from the Welsh National Museum.

Here is a picture of the National Costume of Wales....

 and it looks like she is standing in front of an awning with the longest village name in that fair land Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch - translating to "The church of St. Mary in the hollow of white hazel trees near the rapid whirlpool by St. Tysilio's of the red cave" -

don't even ask me how to pronounce it - here's a link to some information about the town on Wikipedia and an audio for the name!!

Wales is a BEAUTIFUL country and many Brits myself included have holidayed there as a child at seaside villages such as Porthmadog and Llandudno (pronounced clan-did-no - double ll's are c's in English.

So - on to Monmouth Pudding

A simple unassuming pudding but pretty with the meringue topping.

INGREDIENTS:

Topping: The more traditional is jam - I choose raspberry jam - I recently discovered this truly delicious, bright and fresh jam at the Belfast Coop and recommend it very highly if you can find it.

  Recently some people are replacing the jam with stewed fruit - apples, rhubarb or pears - but I like to go with tradition.

PUDDING:

1oz butter

3oz sugar

6oz fresh breadcrumbs - I used white with the crust included - you can use white or wheat with or without the crust - the colours will change and the flavour but it's your choice :))

3 egg yolks

16 fl oz buttermilk (get Kate's if you can find it)

Zest of one lemon preferably organic

MERINGUE:

3 egg whites

1oz sugar

1. Heat the oven to 350F and butter 4 individual ramekins.

2. Heat butter, buttermilk, lemon zest and sugar in a saucepan to just simmering.

3. Remove from heat, add breadcrumbs and leave to absorb for 10 minutes.

4, Stir egg yolks into the breadcrumb mix.

5. Divide evenly between 4 ramekins.

6. Bake in the oven until set - about 25 minutes. While the pudding is baking whisk the 3 egg whites to stiff and then add the sugar in 3 goes whisking in between each addition.

7. Remove the ramekins from the oven - don't turn the oven off - let cool a little then spoon as much jam or stewed fruit as you like on the top - thus -

8. Now pipe your egg white meringue atop the jam and pop back in the oven for about 10 minutes until nicely browned as below - you can enjoy whilst hot - with cream or ice cream or just as is or I preferred it cooled - for some reason I do seem to prefer my hot puddings cold - who knows why.
The breadcrumb pudding part does set up quite solidly - it is not a soft pudding - just FYI.

So off you go with your leeks and daffodils and Happy Baking on Saint David's Day!