Rock Cakes
Rock cakes are Victorian teatime stalwarts, beloved for their deliberately craggy, unrefined appearance that contradicts their buttery interior. The technique is straightforward: coarse rubbed butter creates irregular clusters that bake into crisp peaks while the crumb stays tender. British bakers prize this roughness, rejecting the smooth uniformity of continental pastries. Dried fruit studded throughout adds bursts of jammy sweetness that need no additional icing or glaze.
Instructions
Preheat oven to 180C/350F/Gas 4 and line a baking tray with baking parchment.
Mix the flour, sugar and baking powder in a bowl and rub in the cubed butter until the mixture looks like breadcrumbs, then mix in the dried fruit.
In a clean bowl, beat the egg and milk together with the vanilla extract.
Add the egg mixture to the dry ingredients and stir with a spoon until the mixture just comes together as a thick, lumpy dough.
Add a teaspoon more milk if you really need it to make the mixture stick together.
Place golfball-sized spoons of the mixture onto the prepared baking tray.
Leave space between them as they will flatten and spread out to double their size during baking.
Bake for 15-20 minutes, until golden-brown.
Remove from the oven, allow to cool for a couple of minutes then turn them out onto a wire rack to cool..
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