Round Cakes
North Cornelly, Pen-y-bont
Margaret Maddocks baking round cakes in a Dutch oven, North Cornelly, Glamorgan.
It is certain that the cakes, generally known today as ‘Welsh Cakes’, have been tea-time favourites in Glamorgan since the latter decades of the last century. At one period they would be eaten regularly in farmhouses and cottages alike, and the miner would also expect to find them in his food-box. Two different methods of baking these cakes were practised in Glamorgan. Baking them on a bakestone over an open fire may be regarded as the most general practice throughout the county. The Welsh names given to the cakes were usually based on the Welsh name for the bakestone, and these included pice ar y mân, tishan ar y mân and tishen lechwan. They varied in size from small, round cakes to a single cake as big as the bakestone.
The method favoured in the Vale of Glamorgan, on the other hand, was to bake them in a Dutch oven in front of an open fire. The cakes were cut into small rounds, placed in two or three rows on the bottom of the oven and baked in front of a clean, red glow. These were known as pica/pice bach, tishan gron, and tishen rown. Slashers and tishan whîls were colloquial names given to them in two small villages.
