Recently, some of the children Roy knows have been revisiting the Harry Potter series of books and one told him that 'Harry's Birthday is soon'. Roy hasn't read a lot of the Harry Potter books, but he knew that for his birthday, Harry Potter was often given rock cakes, a type of cake which Roy has been wanting to try, having been given his great, great grandmother's recipe for them recently. We looked up what date Harry's birthday was, and discovered it was going to fall next Tuesday, on July 31st and Roy thought this would be the perfect opportunity to try the famous recipe. Apparently, the cakes Harry receives are hard and difficult to eat, but the ones Roy made were soft and crunchy (at the same time!), and completely irresistable. So this week, Roy Creates Rocks - Rock Cakes That Is!
You Will Need:
Note: This recipe was converted to metric from a very old recipe which was in ounces.
- 120 grams of sugar
- 90 grams of butter or margarine
- 270 grams of self raising flour
- 2 eggs
- 1 large cup of mixed fruit
- 1 level teaspoon of mixed spice
- Milk (how much you need will depend on what the texture of the mix is like - Roy used 3 generous tablespoons)
- Extra sugar (for dipping)
- Optional - Red glace cherries, cut in half
Method:
- Preheat the oven to 200 degrees celcius and line two baking trays with baking paper.
- Mix the flour, mixed spice and sugar together in a large bowl.
- Add the butter and using the tips of your fingers (or if you have one, like Roy, a pastry cutter) rub the butter into the flour mixture. You want the mix to look like fine breadcrumbs
- Add the fruit and mix.
- Add the eggs, one at a time, and mix them through the flour and fruit mixture.
- Now, you will probably need to add a little milk to bring the dough together. Add the milk, about 1 tablespoon at a time, and mix, continuing to add a little milk until you have a stiff and sticky dough.
- Use a fork to lift lumps of the dough out and drop them into a bowl with the extra sugar. Lift them out when they have a light coating of sugar on top, and line them up on a tray (they don't spread a lot, so Roy put 12 on each of his trays)
- If you like, press half a glace cherry into the top of each rock cake
- Bake for 10 to 15 minutes, or until the rock cake is golden brown and crunchy looking.
- These are delicious warm from the oven, but are also very tasty cold the next day.