Stottie cake – a North East favourite

'Stottie cake' might not be familiar to those living outside the North East. It’s a savoury bread, not a sweet cake, but it’s every bit as rewarding to eat. Here lovefood's Matt shows us how to make one.

My dad is a Geordie but I grew up in Plymouth, meaning that trips to Newcastle-upon-Tyne to visit friends and family also offered the rare treat of a batch of fresh stottie cakes.

OK, they might be particularly attractive to me because of the nostalgia factor; but I promise you, there's no other bread quite like these wheels of wonder. They are a soft, but quite heavy bread, which makes for a very satisfying mouthful.

What goes well with stottie cake?

Popular fillings include pease pudding and thick ham, breakfast items (eg the classic bacon and egg combo) and they’re also very good simply spread with butter. My old man suggests trying stottie with corned beef and beetroot, which he claims is “reet canny, like” (see the translations below). He also explained that the word ‘stot’ in Geordie dialect means to throw or bounce, in the context that as a young lad, he might ‘stot’ a ball against a wall.

Wikipedia suggests that the name comes from the theory that the bread might bounce when dropped… we couldn’t help but wonder about that.

They don't bounce. What a shame.

Where can I buy them from?

When visiting Newcastle, we bought our stotties from Greggs, a chain which started up on Tyneside. However, their stores don’t make them elsewhere in the country. They must receive a lot of queries about the lack of stotties from North East natives, as they even list the question, “Why can’t I buy stotties outside of the North East?” in the FAQ section of their website – to which they respond: “We’ve tried before to sell stotties in other parts of the UK but found that customers elsewhere prefer regional breads from that area… unfortunately demand outside of the North East is not high enough to make this viable.”

Make your own

Though it’s disappointing to hear this from Greggs, stotties are actually fairly simple to make at home, though they do require a couple of hours to be ready for baking. 

You can follow our step-by-step recipe here.

Learning to speak Geordie

If you’re preparing stotties for a group of friends, then learning a bit of Geordie dialect might come in handy for conversation – there’s a translator here if you’re curious to learn a few more phrases, but here are some to start you off. 

You might also like:

Stottie cake recipe

Top 10 bread recipes

The history of maslin