A farl is any of various quadrant-shaped

flatbread A flatbread is bread made usually with flour; water, milk, yogurt, or other liquid; and salt, and then thoroughly rolled into flattened dough. Many flatbreads are Unleavened bread, unleavened, although some are leavened, such as pita bread. A Se ...

s and

cake Cake is a flour confection usually made from flour, sugar, and other ingredients and is usually baked. In their oldest forms, cakes were modifications of bread, but cakes now cover a wide range of preparations that can be simple or elabor ...

s, traditionally made by cutting a round into four pieces. In

Ulster Ulster (; or ; or ''Ulster'') is one of the four traditional or historic provinces of Ireland, Irish provinces. It is made up of nine Counties of Ireland, counties: six of these constitute Northern Ireland (a part of the United Kingdom); t ...

, the term generally refers to

soda bread Soda bread is a variety of quick bread made in many cuisines in which sodium bicarbonate (otherwise known as "baking soda", or in Ireland, "bread soda") is used as a leavening agent instead of yeast. The basic ingredients of soda bread are flo ...

(soda farls) and, less commonly, potato bread (potato farls), which are also ingredients of an Ulster fry. It is made as farls (that is to say, flat rounds about 3/4 inch thick which are then cut into quarters). Modern commercially mass-produced potato farls, however, are often rectangular in form. In Scotland today, the word is used less than in

, but a farl can be a quarter piece of a large flat

scone A scone ( or ) is a traditional British and Irish baked good, popular in the United Kingdom and Ireland. It is usually made of either wheat flour or oatmeal, with baking powder as a leavening agent, and baked on sheet pans. A scone is often ...

, bannock, or oatcake. It may also be used for

shortbread Shortbread or shortie is a traditional Scottish biscuit usually made from one part sugar, white sugar, two parts butter and three to four parts plain flour, plain wheat flour. Shortbread does not contain leavening, such as baking powder or bakin ...

when baked in this particular shape.

Etymology

''Farl'' is a shorter form of ''fardel'', the word once used in some parts of Lowland Scotland for "a three-cornered cake, usually oatcake, generally the fourth part of a round".Iseabail Macleod, 'Cereal terms in the ''Dost'' record', Christian Kay & Margaret Mackay, ''Perspectives on the Older Scottish Tongue'' (Edinburgh, 2005), p. 80. In earlier Scots, meant a fourth or quarter.

Method

A farl is made by spreading the dough on a

girdle A belt without a buckle, especially if a cord or rope, is called a girdle in various contexts, especially historical ones, where girdles were a very common part of everyday clothing from antiquity until perhaps the 15th century, especially for w ...

or frying pan in a rough circular shape. The circle is then cut into four equal pieces and cooked. Once one side is done the dough is flipped to cook the other side.

References

External links

History of Irish Soda Bread and recipes at European Cuisines.com
{{Scottish cuisine Irish breads Scottish breads Northern Irish cuisine British breads Quick breads

Etymology

Method

See also

References

External links