The best thing to eat this side of heaven

Well, I've been making Welsh Cakes today. And what a project it was. It is Saturday, December 14, 2025, and I decided to make some of these wonderful things. It was quite a project. I had to buy a bunch of supplies at the store, including a bag of sugar, not realizing I still had plenty of sugar. Now I don't know whether to take the bag back or just make a bunch of cookies. First of all, I don't bake at all, except for Christmas. And then, rarely. I was just going to buy a box of Danish butter cookies to bring to my party, but I developed a huge craving for Welsh Cakes. I also decided to use lard in the recipe. My Welsh grandmother used to use lard in her pie crusts, and they were incomparable, and definitely the best I ever ate, bar none. So I found a recipe that called for half lard and half butter instead of shortening. Well, and the amount may have been for a larger recipe. I'm not sure. They turned out incredibly good, but incredibly delicate and kept breaking. That meant, of course, that I had to eat a lot of the broken pieces, which I didn't mind. Welsh Cakes are not just a sweet treat. They are an experience. There is nothing like them. I am convinced they are the best thing to eat this side of heaven. Okay, here's the recipe: Welsh Cakes 2 cups flour, pinch of cream of tartar (I didn't have any) 2 teaspoons baking powder 1 teaspoon nutmeg 1/4 teaspoon salt 3/4 cup shortening (I substituted 6 teaspoons lard and 6 teaspoons butter) 3/4 cup sugar 1 cup currants (I use raisins) 1 egg 2-4 tablespoons of milk sugar to roll them in after they're done. Sift dry ingredients. Cut in shortening (lard and butter, in my case). Mix well. Add sugar, currantsor raisins, egg, and enough milk to make stiff dough. Refrigerate until cool. One recipe says 30 minutes, another 1-2 hours. I've been known to skip that step completely, but it is not advisable. Roll out with a cookie cutter (I have always used a glass; again, not advisable). Bake on griddle (I use an iron skillet) on top of stove. Yield 2 dozen. To avoid burning cook slowly, at 320, put the heat half way between low and medium. They're best right off the griddle, but you can eat them cold or if you want you can heat them in the microwave for a few seconds. They are yummy with tea or coffee or nothing at all. They are just so good. Of course, they bring back memories, as so many things do this time of year. Memories of my mom, memories of my Nana (her mother) and my granddad and dinners at their house on Sunday. Of course, my friends don't have any of these memories to prop up the Welsh Cake experience, so maybe they won't appreciate them. If so, they can have their chocolate chip cookies or whatever they like and I'll just take my Welsh Cakes home and eat them. I am used to people not appreciating the things I cherish from my past with an English mother. I have never been like everyone else. And I think having an English mother is part of the reason. I still don't know anyone who had an artist mother (she was an incredible painter), or a mother who looked like a movie star and acted in plays, disdained American expressions like, "Where's it at," ("right before the 'at,'" she'd say), taught me not to drink iced tea and not to use certain words. There are still words that Americans say all the time which I think are crude and I still won't say them, not even here. I grew up hearing some women being described as "coarse" or "cheap," some people, in general, being described as "slovenly." American candy was too sweet, she said, so I grew up on Cadbury Caramello, which now is probably as sweet as all the other American chocolate, even though this didn't do too much damage to my sweet tooth. My mother was half Welsh; her mother was Welsh, her father, English, so I guess I'm 1/4 Welsh. My mother always told me I was a Celt, whether I liked it or not. I'm not sure I know what that means, but it meant something to her. I rebelled against my mother quite a bit during my teens, but I don't think you can take the English out of me. When I went to England I felt like I was home. I had always drunk tea with milk and sugar, but I had never seen it served at a restaurant with the milk already in the cup, so you poured your tea out of a large urn into your cup with the milk already in it. I knew it made no sense to bring hot water to the table at a restaurant and expect to dunk a teabag in it and have a decent cup of tea. The water has to be at a rolling boil when you pour it over the teabag, but here, nobody observes that unless they have an English mother. I just felt at home in England, and I wish I could go back. Mom never got to go back, and she lived and died homesick for England. It's so sad to me, that she came over here and married the handsome prince that my dad always was until the day he died at 89, but then got a divorce after having left everything over there to come here. Anyway, so Welsh Cakes are just a little taste of my heritage, as it were. Something special to me; I don't suppose they will be as special to anybody else, unless I can share them with someone who will appreciate them. Maybe somebody reading this will discover them and enjoy them very much, even though they can't possibly have the meaning attached to them in the way they are to me. It's about time for me to wrap this up. I hope you have something like this to enjoy as a special treat from your childhood. My atheist neighbor says she "detests" the holidays, but most everyone else I know loves them and along with the love for the holidays are the tender memories of family gatherings in childhood. These are all meaningful and lovely, and I hope the nostalgia of it all will not make you sad, but instead full of the love of the Lord because he really does love us so much. I wish I could always be aware of this, as I hope you will be during this season. Joy to the world, the Lord is come, let earth receive her King!