Welsh Cakes: The activity plan

	For reference, Guides are aged 10 – 14 Break the girls up into Patrols/ groups of 6-8
WELSH CAKES
Equipment: Scone cutter/ or a clean cup or mug Fat to grease your pan (butter on a piece of kitchen towel) Said pan: skillet, heavy based frying pan rolling pin Mixing bowl Pallette knife/ fish slice Clean hands
Ingredients: 8oz plain flour 4oz butter (Basics/ Economy butter is perfect) 3-4oz caster sugar 4-5oz dried fruit (optional) 1 egg 1/2 tsp sweet mixed/ cake spice This makes about 24 Welsh cakes, so ideal for a Patrol of 6-8 girls	If doing this with Guides it is an ideal Patrol cooking activity for the summer months. Unlike pasta the fire doesn’t need to be kept burning for too long, so for new girls to making a cooking fire this is a great introduction to outdoor cooking.
Instructions: Set your fire – usual way, get at least one metal fire bucket of water by you, turf your spot/ use a fireplace, collect your wood, start with punk, build up with small sticks/ twigs and get bigger as it establishes. Make sure this is somewhere safe and that you have a leader with you to supervise. Wash your hands Put the butter and flour in the mixing bowl and rub the butter into the flour until your mixture resembles breadcrumbs (like you’re making a crumble) Add the sugar and fruit Add the egg and mix relatively gently with your hands until it comes together as a ball of dough Flour the worktop/ a table Roll out until about 1cm thick and cut out as many circles as you can (with the cup, mug or scone cutter) before re-rolling the trimmings and repeating until you have used up all your dough Grease your pan with some spare butter on a piece of kitchen towel Put the welsh cakes on the pan and every minute or two turn them over until the texture changes from scone like to a soft biscuit - try to avoid them burning, but they need to be quite dark in colour Serve as soon as they're cool enough to touch with squash for threesies, or with a cup of tea or coffee for your leaders! These will keep in an airtight container for a few days – that said, I’ve never known them too!	Safety notes: Please make sure that the girls are well supervised Fire buckets of water, for burns and to put out the fire Pot holders – thick fabric pieces to hold a pan with If you oil the bottom of the pan before using it over the fire, it’ll clean more easily This way is best for Brownies/ younger Guides You can do this indoors with Brownies or Guides as a St David’s Day activity, or when you’ve planned outdor cooking, but the elements are against you! A sturdy pan is best, but I did mine yesterday with a plain old non stick frying pan and it worked fine. Keep your heat on the halfway point or slightly lower. Usual kitchen safety rules/ washing up apply.
Extra ideas ·         Why not set a challenge/ treasure hunt to be completed successfully to win a bagged, weighed portion of the ingredients if you’re doing this as part of a weekend away? ·         Baden Powell girls could lead/ organise this as a cooking competition for one of their challenges – they could set the challenges for the other girls to get their ingredients – and ask leaders to supervise the fires/ cooking ·         If you’re doing this as part of St David’s Day celebrations, why not try finding out why these are called Welsh Cakes?