This recipe is from my Gran,
an amazing baker, and everything she made was delicious,
and she made it look incredibly easy.
I need to take a deep breath.
[MUSIC]
Hey everyone. My name is Naomi Boyd and I am
a Community Manager for
the Microsoft Advertising Business.
Today, I'm making my favorite recipe,
which is a Welsh cake.
It is prepared like a scone.
It's actually cooked like a pancake and then it is
eaten, or devoured in my case, like a cookie.
We take all-purpose flour.
This case I'm using eight ounces and then salted butter.
My grandmother actually used a "high-quality margarine,"
she liked to say, but
it's okay to be at room temperature.
We're going to add that to the flour.
Now you can either use your hands
or you can use a pastry cutter.
I am going to use a pastry cutter today because
I don't particularly enjoy
rubbing butter and flour together.
I landed my dream job at Microsoft about three years ago.
I am a nine-year employee at the company
and I get to drive
our D&I strategy for the advertising business.
That involves helping with inclusive recruiting,
empowering our employees to advocate for
themselves, to come to work as their authentic selves.
I am really grateful because I
never thought that someone that
didn't have technical experience
could actually work at Microsoft.
Now that we have really small pieces,
there's no big lumps of butter,
so we need to add the rest of the dry ingredients.
Four ounces of just plain, granulated sugar,
four ounces of currants;
these are just tiny raisins.
I always recommend using currants because
the raisins are too big and some allspice.
My grand used regular nutmeg,
but I like the combination
of the cinnamon and stuff in here.
I just eyeball it,
we're going to go with two big pinches and
then I'm going to continue using
my hands because it's more fun,
and we're going to mix all this together.
[MUSIC]
The pandemic has been really difficult for everyone.
My story, specifically, I've
suffered from depression and
anxiety since I was about 18.
At that point I also became a bulimic.
My relationship to food really
changed. I stopped baking,
which is something I love.
I definitely had a relapse with bulimia
and was really depressed, understandably so.
I reached out to the Employee Assistance Program through
Microsoft Benefits and started meeting with
a therapist again and it kind of
stopped before the pandemic hit.
it's what got me through the pandemic
in addition to the love of
my friends and family and my coworkers.
It's been tough, but there's light at the end of
the tunnel and I am happy to be baking again.
[MUSIC]
This is probably the most difficult step,
even though this is a really easy recipe as you've seen.
I'm going to make little well in
this bowl to put the wet ingredients.
Start with one egg and I like to keep eggs at
room temperature for recipes; it helps incorporate.
I am checking to see if this dough
will hold together because we need to roll it out.
It's a little crumbly,
so I'm just going to add a splash of milk,
put some flour on the surface so that it doesn't stick.
We're going to attempt to roll it out.
Because of my eating disorder,
I started making certain foods illegal.
That really included all desserts,
like all desserts were bad.
Through treatment and counseling,
I started to legalize food,
then I became more excited to bake.
I decided to make a birthday cake for a coworker.
I found this three-layer
ganache-covered chocolate-filled cake
that I was determined to make.
It started my love affair with baking.
It's part of my recovery actually,
in addition to just wanting to be nice for a coworker.
The dough has come together really nicely now,
but I need to roll it out which is
about a quarter of an inch.
I'm taking my cookie-cutter
and just cutting them into shapes.
Now that we have our Welsh cakes cut out,
we're not going to grease the pan.
There's enough butter in here and you're just
going to stick them on the pan.
You're going to cook them for
about five minutes on each side.
This is like the pancake thing.
You made them like a scone.
You're cooking them like a pancake.
You're going to eat them like a cookie.
They're not sizzling or anything.
They're just going to sit there
and they're going to get really nice and
golden brown and then you'll flip
them over and the same will happen.
While these cook for five minutes,
they're on low heat,
you may want to test one to see how fast they cook.
I have definitely burned
an entire batch before being very impatient,
so low and slow,
five minutes each side.
[MUSIC]
We're going to test these now and
notice that they don't spread.
That one's great.
You can see it's nice and golden brown.
Wait the same amount of time to get the bottom.
[MUSIC]
We get to sprinkle them with sugar now,
which is the best part.
[MUSIC]
It's good. It's been
my pleasure today to share a family recipe with you,
the Welsh cake, and to share
my journey with mental health.
If you're struggling, please reach
out to Microsoft Benefits.
For those of you who don't work for Microsoft,
please reach out to your employer or to
your local medical provider
to get the help that you need as well.
Thank you again for watching,
and for more episodes, visit MicrosoftLife.com.