Mountain Sounds Rock Cake Recipe

First the practical details

Pre-heat the oven to Gas Mark 6 or 200 C or 400 F
Line two baking sheets with greaseproof paper

Ingredients

4 oz butter or cooking margerine
8 oz plain flour and 2 level teaspoon baking powder OR 8 oz self raising flour
4 oz caster sugar or soft brown sugar
4 oz mixed fruit
1 egg beaten
1/2 teaspoon mixed spice or cinnamon
a little milk

Instructions

There are lots of parts of this recipe that are interchangeable. Plain flour and baking powder works as well as Self raising flour. Caster sugar or soft brown sugar can be switched but brown sugar will give a more caramelly flavour. Mixed fruit can be any dried fruit, I've even tried switching for a mixture of Date and Walnut and it was lovely. The spices are also up to you, adding a little nutmeg works well, especially at Christmas.

Place the butter/margerine in a bowl and add the flour/baking powder and your choice of spices. Rub the mixture together until you have something that looks like very fine breadcrumbs (this is same principle as making a crumble mix).

Add the fruit and sugar and stir this into crumble mix , try to ensure that the sugar is evenly spread through the mixture.

Pour over the beaten egg. You can use a spoon to mix all the ingredients together; you are aiming for a mixture that has a dropping consistency. This means it will drop slowly from the spoon when you turn it upside down; (gloopy would be a good word to describe it).

You can add a little milk at this stage if the mixture is too stiff. If you add too much, add a little extra flour to bring it back to the right texture.

Next take spoonful's of the mixture and drop this onto the baking tray. Leave some room between the blobs, as the mixture may spread a little when cooking. You are aiming to create about 12 blobs of similar size, 6 on each tray. Once you are happy with the size, cover each blob with a sprinkling of caster or brown sugar. This will give a lovely crispy top.

Place them in the pre-heated oven for between 15 and 20 minutes. Keep an eye on them and when they are golden brown they are ready to be taken out of the oven.

You should really leave them to cool fully but they taste just as good when they are warm so after 5 minutes they are usually fair game in our house.