Recipe

This stottie cake recipe is transcribed straight from the note my Grandma Nellie dictated to my mother in the early 1990s.

The italics are my additional notes of explanation.

Ingredients

One and a half pounds of Bero Plain flour (I use strong bread flour, and have no brand preference. She never measured this. Just take a full three pound bag of flour and nip it in the middle as you tip it into the bowl.)

Three quarters of a teaspoon of salt

One ounce of fresh yeast (A sachet of dried yeast is a suitable substitute, though she would swear it wasn’t.)

One level tablespoon of sugar

A knob of lard, maybe a tablespoon (I use a level tablespoon, more typically butter as I rarely have lard to hand.)

Lukewarm water, after the kettle has boiled, maybe about three quarters of a pint (If the water is too hot it kills the yeast, if it’s too cold it doesn’t activate it. My rule of thumb is ‘hand hot’, which I get by mixing one part fresh boiled water with one part cold.)

Directions

Step-by-step overview in pictures

1. Put the flour in a dish with the salt and mix together.
I use a large mixing bowl

2. Make a hole in the middle and add the yeast broken into small pieces with the sugar and lard on top

3. Pour some warm water over the top to cover the hole (you will see it will start fermenting). Wait maybe five minutes or so.
You can tell it’s fermenting as the yeast starts bubbling.

4. Then begin adding more warm water and mixing the flour/yeast mix into a dough. Not too stiff, not too soft so it’s sticky.
It should be a firm ball of dough which is easy to knead with your fists. Not sticking to the sides of the bowl, and nothing loose.

5. When all mixed up, leave in the dish and cover with a clean tea towel, and put somewhere warm until the mixture rises.
It’s worth kneading a little beyond just getting everything mixed.
I have strong memories of Nellie’s bowl getting covered with a sheet of the Sunday newspaper and put next to the coal fire which was always on, even at the height of summer.
My cooker grill is directly above the oven. I have the oven on heating for the next stage, so this is a good place to leave it.

6. When risen, roll out on a floured surface cut into squares.
Most people think of stotties as quite large, round things. Nellie would roll out into a circle, about 1cm thick, but then cut up with a butter knife (they weren’t really squares, just cut along grid lines) which I suppose made it easier to share out. Instead of the dimple in the middle, she pricked hers with a fork.

7. Put in a pre-heated hot oven (hottest temperature) until done – 5 or 10 minutes, you will smell them when they’re ready.
Grease your baking trays with a bit of butter or lard rubbed over the surface.
I go for about 220 degrees.

A few extra notes – things I’ve learned over the years following this recipe

The original note

As I mentioned on the background information page, my grandma dictated the recipe to my mother so I could have a go at baking stotties after I’d moved away from home. This is the well-used note written in the early 1990s.