Recipe Time: Teisen Lap

By Steffan Roberts, proprietor of the popular Snowdon Café in Penceunant Isaf, Snowdon

One of my favourite recipes is this deliciously moist light fruit cake which seldom lasted long out of the oven, mainly because as kids we’d stand waiting for it to come out of the AGA, and then polish it off with a glass of full cream milk!

It is best while still warm.

We called it Drawer Cake, but that’s not the proper translation, and there seem to be so many different translations and recipes for it – Moist, Slab etc.

But the name doesn’t really matter does it if it tastes fantastic?

This recipe unusually calls for some glacé cherries to be hurled into the mix

Ingredients:

12oz/375g Self Raising Flour

5oz/150g Margerine

6oz/180g Sugar

8oz/240g Mixed Dried Fruit

Handful of Glace Cherries

2 Eggs from Welsh hens

5floz/150ml Milk

Pinch of Ginger

Pinch of Nutmeg

Method:

Rub the margarine into the flour.

Add the fruit, chopped glacé cherries and sugar.

Beat the eggs into the milk and add to the mixture. Sprinkle in the nutmeg and ginger and mix well.

The mixture should drop off the spoon easily. Pour into a shallow tin, and bake in a low oven (250F or 130C). You’ll need to watch it to make sure it doesn’t burn on the top.

Remove from the oven and consume instantly! Although take care if it’s very hot.

It’s lovely with a glass of creamy milk, or perhaps some Barley Wine. One alternative is to steep the fruit in Barley Wine (and a teabag) to soak up the flavour.

Find more of my recipes in the ‘Snowdon Café Cookbook’, available at: www.snowdoncafe.com.

Proceeds from sales of the book will go towards the Love Hope Strength Foundation, co-founded by Mike Peters of The Alarm, which promotes music-related, outreach and awareness programmes for leukaemia and cancer sufferers, survivors and their families.