From an old Welsh cake recipe collection, purchased in Wales in 1992. Sheep shearing time was, and still is, one of the major social occasions in Welsh rural life, for in the difficult hill districts especially farmers help each other with the rounding-up and shearing of their enormous flocks of sheep on a rota basis. The host farm kitchen is busy for days beforehand preparing pies and tarts and cakes and baked meats ready to feed the shearers. This cake, with its caraway seed flavour, is traditional to the shearing time.