Of Selkirk fame

Appears in
A Year in a Scots Kitchen
A Year in a Scots Kitchen

By Catherine Brown

Published 1996

  • About
The word ‘bannock’ referred originally to a round unleavened piece of dough, usually about the size of a meat plate, which was baked on the girdle and used by the oven-less Scots in place of yeast-raised oven-baked bread. It is now generally applied to any baking item which is large and round.

Inch-thick (2.5 cm), unleavened bannocks in the style of the original Beltane bannocks are no longer made; the thickest oatcake is unlikely to be more than ¼ in (5 mm) thick and they are usually divided up into four farls (quarters) rather than left whole. The only remaining large round bannocks made of barley are Orkney beremeal bannocks though they are soft and aerated with modern raising agents. Another traditional round bannock with a more recent history is the Selkirk bannock — a yeast-raised, buttery flavoured bun which is made with sultanas. The first Selkirk bannocks were made by a baker, Robbie Douglas, who opened a shop in the Market Place in 1859 and started making a rich yeasted bannock which eventually took on the name of the town.