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Fadges
(Irish Pancakes.) Boil 1/2 pint of milk and 3 ounces of butter, stirring to prevent burning. Take off, add 1 pound of whole wheat flour and a pinch of salt, and beat well. Roll out 3/4 inch thick, cut into squares and cook on a griddle, turning often, for 1 1/2 hours. Serve with butter or preserves.
A scalded-dough griddle bread rather than a pancake in the modern batter sense: the milk and butter are boiled and beaten into the flour, giving a stiff paste that is rolled and cut into squares. Two things in the original need attention before you start — the liquid quantity and the cooking time.
- The hinge: heat low and slowA 3/4-inch square of stiff dough on a griddle will scorch long before the centre sets if the pan is hot. Keep the griddle at the low end, barely more than a hot-plate warmth, and turn every few minutes as directed. A dry cast-iron pan or bakestone over the lowest workable flame is the right vessel.
- The pintAn Irish or British half-pint is 10 fl oz; a US half-pint is 8 fl oz. Which is meant here is not clear from the text, so start with 10 fl oz and adjust.
- The dough will be very dryOne pound of flour to a cup or so of liquid plus 3 oz butter gives a paste stiffer than most cooks will expect, and wholemeal drinks more than white. Add boiling milk or water by the tablespoon until it just comes together into a rollable dough that is not crumbling at the edges.
- Whole wheat flourWholemeal of this kind was likely coarser and lower in protein than modern high-protein wholewheat bread flour. A coarse wholemeal, or wholemeal cut with a quarter of plain flour, is probably closer than a bread flour, which will fight the rolling pin.
- No leaveningThere is no soda, baking powder or buttermilk here, so these will be dense and close-textured — closer to an oatcake or a bannock than to a risen farl. That is correct for the recipe; do not add raising agent expecting it to lift a dough this stiff.
- The hour and a halfNinety minutes is far longer than squares this size need on a modern griddle; expect something closer to half an hour of steady turning, and test by splitting one: the centre should be dry and crumbly, not pasty. Undercooked wholemeal dough tastes raw and heavy.
- Yield and servingA pound of flour gives roughly eight to ten squares, enough for four at breakfast or tea. Split while hot, butter generously, or serve with preserves as the recipe says; they stale quickly and are best eaten the day they are made.
Fadge is an Ulster word, and in Ireland it most often means potato bread — the flat farl of mashed potato and flour cooked on a griddle and fried up with a breakfast. The word also carries an older English sense of a thick flat loaf, or a bundle, which is nearer to what this recipe delivers: a scalded wholemeal paste rolled, squared and slowly cooked on a griddle rather than baked in an oven. Griddle cookery of this kind persisted where the hearth served as the oven, and flat, unleavened breads remained common in Irish and Scottish kitchens.