Rock Cakes

These may look like rocks, but they don’t taste like them. This is the first ever recipe my great-grandmother, taught me. Easy Peasy!

Ingredients

200g self-raising flour

1 tsp baking powder

100g butter or margarine

85g sugar

100g of sultanas or mixed dried fruit

2 eggs beaten

Half a teaspoon of vanilla extract

2 tablespoons milk

sugar for sprinkling

1 cup of icing sugar with 2 tablespoons of water added for a dropping texture

Method

Heat the oven to 180C/160C fan/gas 4. Sieve flour and baking powder into a mixing bowl. Add the cubed butter or margarine and mix into the flour mixture until it resembles fine breadcrumbs. I use margarine personally, because butter can be hard work mixing into the flour. If you use margarine, use a light airy touch and you should be OK, with lots of lifting to  airiate. I’m not sure if that is even a word, but even if it isn’t, I like it.

Next stir in the sugar, sultanas, beaten egg, vanilla extract and milk. Mix to a firm dough. Here is a picture of the required result. It may seem too stiff, but keep with it. It has to be like this else it will spread too much in the oven. Add 1 more tablespoon of milk if the mixture doesn’t stick together and leaves residue in the bowl.

Using a spoon, dollop (love that word), the mixture onto a greased baking sheet about 2 cm apart. Sprinkle over a little sugar on each one and bake for about 20 minutes.

Remove from the oven and leave to cool on a wire rack. Mix together the icing sugar with the water until you have a dropping consistency. Drizzle over the cakes.

PS..Please don’t make these if you are on a diet or you have a Labrador. You have been warned!