Our resident baker and well-know member, Tracey Ebbs, shares some of her top recipes that you can make to help alleviate the boredom at home and provide you and your family with a tasty treat!
This week:
Rock Cakes
Rock cakes were invented during rationing when ingredients were very hard to come by. This is an updated, much less austere version and they’re surprisingly tasty for such a simple recipe.
You can use sultanas, raisins or whichever is your favourite dried fruit. I like using a mixed dried fruit that includes some dried peel as well.
This was my introduction to baking, I used to make these with my Grandma when I was very young. An ideal start for a novice maker and the perfect thing to make with the kids.
Ingredients
350g Self raising flour
¼ teaspoon salt
175g light brown sugar
1 teaspoon mixed spice
175g butter
125g dried fruit (sultanas, raisins or mixed dried fruit)
1 large egg
1–2 tablespoons milk (if needed)
- Mix the flour, salt and sugar in a bowl, making sure you get all the little lumps out of the sugar, then add the spices and rub in the butter with your fingertips until the mixture looks like fine breadcrumbs.
- Stir in the fruit. Now break the egg into a separate bowl and whisk it lightly with a fork, then add it to the flour mixture. Stir until the mixture forms a stiff dough (you may need to add a tablespoon of milk, though certainly not more than two).
- Pile the mixture in irregular spiky heaps on the baking sheet. Bake near the centre of the oven for 18–20 minutes or until golden brown, then leave to cool for a minute on the tray before removing to a wire rack.