This Saturday is National Hug a Sheep Day, which I am putting on my calendar right now.
If I’m feeling really ambitious I might even try to make a special treat that sheep farmers in Wales have made for years: Sheep-Shearing Cake.
Farmers probably wouldn’t be eating this cake on Hug a Sheep Day, because sheep shearing is more often done at the start of summer and early fall.
In more traditional agricultural times, farms that had a lot of sheep, more than they could shear in a day on their own, would turn to their neighbors for help.
Farmers in a region would help each other out, taking turns visiting each other’s farms for a day for shearing and dipping sheep.
To say thanks for all that work, the host farm would do some baking ahead of shearing day.
Sheep-Shearing Cake is supposed to be easy to serve and consume even if you’re still out in the fields.
It’s a sponge cake with a dusting of sugar on top and maybe some nutmeg, lemon or candied fruit in the middle.
The cake also includes caraway seeds, a spice that gives old-school rye breads their flavor.
That may not be the spice that screams cake to all of us, but bakers say it complements the lemon flavor nicely.
Sheep-Shearing Cake isn’t as well known today as it was in years past, but maybe it’s time for a comeback.
So get yourself a flock of sheep that are ready to shake off all that wool, pick up some caraway seeds at the store, and get baking!
Starting this Saturday in Claremore, Oklahoma, it’s the Route 66 Pecan & Music Festival.
If you like your agritourism with a side of live music, you’re in luck: there will be rock and country bands onstage.
Plus: hay rides, potato sack races and pie eating contests.
Something tells me some of those pies may be pecan pies.
Welsh Shearing Cake or Cacen Gneifo (Daffodil Kitchen)
Route 66 Pecan & Music Festival
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