Maslin Bread

Description

Ingredients

three pounds white flour
one pound barley meal
one ounce dried yeast
salt dissolved in warm water


Method

Crumble the yeast into a little warm water to soften it.
Mix together the two kinds of flour in a large bowl, make a well in the centre and pour in the yeasted water.
Sprinkle a little flour over it, cover the bowl with a clean cloth and leave to stand for about twenty minutes until the yeast becomes frothy.
Then, gradually add the warm salted water to make a soft dough.
Knead thoroughly, for a longer period than is usual for ordinary dough.
Cover and allow to rise for approximately one hour.
Divide the dough and shape into loaves according to the size of the tins.
Put the loaves in greased tins and bake them in a hot oven.


Llanfachraeth, Anglesey.

VIn Anglesey, these loaves were traditionally baked singly on a bakestone, but were covered with an inverted cast-iron pan. Using gorse or straw as fuel, the fire was lit in a sheltered position outside the house or on the hearth in the kitchen. The bakestone would rest on a tripod stand over the fire and the inverted pan would be covered with glowing embers so that the loaf would be completely enclosed in heat. Pobi yn y baw (baking in dirt) was the local idiom used to describe this particular method of baking in this part of Wales. Barley bread was baked in the same way on the Llŷn Peninsula, but the fuel varied according to what was available, e.g. chaff, gorse or charred furze. The loaves were named torth padell a gradell (griddle and pan loaf) or torth dan badell (loaf under a pan). In other areas where peat was the main source of fuel, bread was similarly baked in a pot oven, glowing embers being placed on the lid of the pot as well as beneath it. In this instance the loaf would adopt the Welsh name given to the pot in respective areas, e.g. torth ffwrn fach, torth getel, torth grochan or it would refer to the fuel used for baking it – e.g. bara twarch a mate (Pembrokeshire).