Saturday 7 June 2008

Rock Cakes - cinnamon and raisin

The lovely Pig in the kitchen (who incidentally writes a rather splendid blog) made rock cakes here. I saw them and immediately wanted to make some... and eat them of course. They looked fabulous and would have taken a very good picture, but this is all that's left...


Cinnamon and Raisin Rock Cakes
Makes enough for a family of 4 to enjoy over a few days with enough to let the next door neighbours (family of 3) have one each.

200g unsalted butter
450g plain flour
100g raisins
100g soft light brown sugar
2 large eggs
2 teaspoons of baking powder
2 teaspoons of cinnamon
3-4 tablespoons of milk

Preheat oven to 175C.
Grease 2 baking trays with butter or oil.
Place all the ingredients in a large bowl and mix together well using a wooden spoon or your hands...
Using your hands, get some dough, about golf ball size for small ones and half a tennis ball size for larger ones. Don't work it too much they look better when cooked if they haven't been smoothed over.
Place each ball (or blob) on to the baking sheet as you go, leaving space between each one as they spread when cooking.
Cook for between 10 and 20 minutes. 10 minutes for the smaller ones and up to 20 minutes for the larger ones. They should be a light golden brown and if you insert a skewer into the middle it should come out clean. Don't let them get too dark or they really will be like rocks!

If you want to you can sprinkle golden granulated sugar over them before cooking. That's how I had them as a child and having not put sugar on these ones I will do next time...

We're continuing with Middle Eastern food today with our favourite way of having lamb, butterflied and bbq'd. Today served Shawarma style - can't wait!

22 comments:

Marie Rayner said...

Great looking cookies and that lamb sounds delish! Can't wait to see it!

MyKitchenInHalfCups said...

Amanda that is so fun and says a lot about how good they were.

Anonymous said...

The Cinnamon that is sold in the US is actually Cassia. Please click the link under my name to learn how to identify real cinnamon from cassia.

Amanda at Little Foodies said...

Hi Marie, thank you and the lamb was really REALLY good.

Hi Tanna, thank you, they were.

Hi Cinnamon, there's no link. We can get both cassia bark and cinnamon (ground and sticks) in the UK but I'd be interested to see how you can tell the difference when they're both ground.

Thank you for your comments.
Amanda x

Patricia Scarpin said...

No wonder there was almost nothing left, Amanda! YUM!

Kelly-Jane said...

Cinnamon sounds like a lovely addition to rock cakes.

I went into nursery and baked some with the children, so did a trila run at home first, ours went the same way as yours, except I didn't even manage a picture! They are so worrth keeping alive as a baking tradition.

I'm really glad you liked the sauce, it's so easy and so good!

KJxx

Pat said...

Oh Yummy!!! It has been ages since I made Rock cakes. I may have to have another go. Thanks!!

Deborah said...

I have never even heard of rock cakes before, but they sound delightful!

KJ said...

You no something is good when you can barely get a photo of it :}

Aimée said...

I've never heard of rock cakes, Amanda, but they look perfect for my Saturday brunch. Are the to sweet? Like a scone??

Anonymous said...

Rock cakes huh! Wow! I wanted to share this, whenever I have any kind of cake, with it I have this drink called purple. You must have heard about it since it's doing a lot of rounds in the celebrity circuit and is all over the news. Its tastes amazing with cakes, try it and let me know if you liked it or not. It is a health drink which is made up of 7 fruits juice and is high on antioxidants and you know about antioxidants right? it prevents premature ageing, what else do growing women want huh, LOL!! If you want more information to check whether what I am saying is right you can get it at www.drinkpurple.com . You can get it at GNC and drug stores.

Nora B. said...

Hi Amanda,
How are you? Rock cakes were a childhood treat - I used to buy them at least once a week from the local bakery. When I finally went to the UK to visit my sister and ate the real rock cake, I totally swooned. I can't eat the Singapore version of rock cakes anymore now. Thanks for the recipe, I am keen to try and see if it matches my nostalgic memory of how good it tastes ;-)

x Nora

Anonymous said...

Those look very good - never heard of "Rock Cakes" before. Heard of Russian Rocks, though. :) Thanks for a great share!

Jared said...

Can't say I have ever heard of "rock cakes" before but those look delicious. The lamb sounds intriguing as well.

Anonymous said...

We used to make boulder cakes - huge enormous rock buns that we made by ourselves as children - from the Brownies cook book!

Pig in the Kitchen said...

oooo, now i want to make rock cakes all over again! with kitsch glace cherries, fab.
Pigx

David Hall said...

Ooh, very nice! Gutted about missing you this week Amanda, I gather it all went really well. Too short a notice I'm afraid, I hope you weren't offended. I was gutted.

Cheers
Dave x

Cynthia said...

I wish I had seen this earlier today. I was so craving a sweet baked good and all I could think of was something with coconut but did not have the energy to grate a coconut. This would have been perfect but who knows... maybe tomorrow or Sunday :)

Hope you and the family are well.

Nora B. said...

Hi Amanda,
Just dropping by a quick hello. I'm off to see Gordan Ramsay today :-) I am very excited about it, even being sick will not damper my mood :-)

luv,
Nora

Anonymous said...

Ahhhhh, rock cakes. They bring back so many memories. I'm sure they tasted as wonderful as they look. Well of course they did, there was nothing left to photograph! Yipppeeeee!

Lots of love
Cherry xoxox

ShellyH said...

Wow, awesome blog! Everything looks delicous! I am visiting you from the foodie blog roll.

Anonymous said...

THese look so easy I might just make a double batch

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