A Stack O' Stotties

The older I get, the more Geordie I appear to be getting. And since getting my mixer, resplendent with its dough hook, i've been trying to make more bread (although bread making is often delayed whilst I end up wandering around my kitchen, making myself giggle by pretending to be a pirate with the dough hook) So it's amazing really that I've never yet gotten round to making my own stottie cakes yet. But, tonight, I made my first attempt.

For those of you of a Southern disposition, you may well have no idea what I'm on about. The stottie is one of the shining lights of Geordie cuisine. Within its fluffy, dense interior is the inimitable feeling of home. 

Stotties bread is only proved once, giving it a dense, beautifully soft texture. It's like the marshmallow of the bread world. It's particularly good at soaking up liquids, so great for a bacon sarnie as the sauce (brown, obviously) and fat soaks into the bread. Traditionally, it was make by housewives on baking day, as they used to take a section of dough after first proving to bake straight away for their man's bait (that means lunch, by the way, not some weird northern mating ritual). Off the man would go, down the pit, with his ham and pease pudding stottie in hand.

So anyway, my first attempt at them went alright. I tried to make them smaller than a usual, plate-sized stottie, and I probably made them too thick. I left some of them in the oven a little too long as well, so they started getting a crust, although this certainly isn't unpleasant, just not very traditional. 

And here, dear friends, are My First Stotties: