Friday 29 October 2010

Making rock cakes


We are having visitors for the weekend and I know they like rock cakes so I thought we would make some. Rock cakes are a very British cake so for those of you who don't know about them they are nicer than the sound. My friend Zack Rabbit tells me that Harry Potter is very fond of them. This is interesting because the recipe we use calls them Old Harry Rock cakes. We do make some changes to that recipe though. My new young brother Yaya is helping me cook for the first time so I will have to tell him what to do.






The first thing is to get the ingredients ready, you need:

8 oz of self-raising flour
4 oz of butter
4 oz of demerara sugar
1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon of allspice
4 oz of mixed dried fruit
Grated rind of one lemon
1 large egg
2 tablespoons of milk (more if the mixture is too dry).






Right we have got all those ingredients so we need to weigh them out. I was showing Yaya the scales and the weights he was very interested in them.

Turn the oven on to 190 C, 375 F or gas mark 5.












Rub the butter into the flour until it resembles find breadcrumbs and stir in the spices, sugar, dried fruit, grated lemon rind, egg and milk and then stir the mixture until it resembles crumbly dough, you may need to add a little more milk but make sure you do not make the mixture too wet.










Now for the fun bit that baboons like me with big paws like best, Yaya will find it more difficult because his paws are very small. Gently squeeze and roll the mixture into about 12 small balls and put them on a tray that has been lightly greased with butter or margerine.

Put the buns in the oven.







Now here is tricky. The recipe says to leave them for 20 mins and we did that for years and it worked very well. However, recently we accidently took them out after 15 mins and they were a much nicer texture and more tasty. So really I think you might need to experiment with cooking times as all ovens are different. See what suits you and your oven.

When you take them out of the oven let them rest on the tray for 5 mins you have been doing all the work but the buns need a rest. Work that out for yourselves I can't figure it out it myself.





After 5 mins put them on a cooling rack, we put a tea towel on to stop them sticking to the rack or getting squres all over their bottoms!

I had to explain to Yaya that they are still very hot and not yet ready for eating.






Finally, make yourself a nice cup of tea or coffee, put your feet up and eat a warm rock cake. You deserve it. Well I say finally, at some point there is a lot of washing up to do, I explained to Yaya that the washing is the job of the under chef. He thought I meant him, obviously I meant our person.

8 comments:

  1. Fanks. I order one tray pleez. I send Lola for it later

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  2. What a great recipe! we can smeel those cakes from here.

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  3. Those sownd delishush, we mite haz to try it sumtimes. It kinda souwnds like mini froot-cakes,but they look like big cookies. We wonder if you could put alchol in there, like rums?

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  4. I'll takes two....one fur each paw paw. Dey looks nommy and anyfing harry potter likes i likes MOL!

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  5. yummy - now you are making us hungry. I told M she'd better make some soon - very soon. Thanks for sharing buddy.

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  6. We saw Old Harry Rocks when we were on holiday. Maybe we should make his cakes!

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  7. Hi there!

    I'm working on a new ITV1 cookery show called Food, Glorious, Food, I was just wondering if you can get in touch with me? My email is laura.mitchell@optomen.com

    Many thanks,
    Laura

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  8. My Virginian great aunt used to make these at Christmas time, but they were hard as rocks! Many years later, a cousin discovered the secret: don't leave them in the oven too long. Her version was chewy, not break-your-teeth hard. But I'd trade those for Aunt Garland's Rocks - and Aunt Garland - any day.

    Fond memories of days - and Christmas treats - gone by. Thanks for resurrecting them.

    Susan in Kentucky

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