Rock Cakes

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ByRebecca McLeod 16/11/2023

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As usual, whenever I can, I share my recipes with both Thermomix and Conventional methods. Rock Cakes is another recipe we used to make in for our Cafe. Yep, another popular one. Let’s talk about the ingredients first.

Ingredients we use for our (cafe style) Rock Cakes

Dried Fruit – you can pretty much use what ever you like here. I’ve used a combination this time to show you. As long as it totals 90g ish then do what you like! We used to offer Cherry Rock Cakes, Sultana Rock Cakes, whatever we could imagine. Now if you’ve done any of my courses, you’ll know what I think about dried fruit and how to process it for the best results. Make sure you drain them really well before adding to the dough, or you’ll add too much water.
Flour and Baking Powder – I know a lot of recipes call for self-raising flour. We don’t buy it, we just make our own on the fly. It’s a much better method. Takes up less room in the pantry and it helps with freshness. So this recipe calls for plain flour and baking powder.
Mixed spice – we would put 1/2 a teaspoon in for normal rock cakes, but if it was closer to Christmas and we made cherry rock cakes we might add a full teaspoon and drizzle cherry icing over the top.
Caster sugar – is my “go to” sugar. It’s what I mainly buy and use. I do keep a little bit of larger crystal sugar to use as decoration. On these rock cakes I’ve used raw sugar.
Butter – unsalted of course for baking and cooking, but we do add salt to the recipe to bring out all the wonderful flavours. If you don’t have unsalted butter you can use salted butter and leave out the salt, although you will have less control on how much salt is in the recipe.
Egg and Milk- both add moisture, and egg helps bind.

FAQ

My Rock Cakes are like Rocks!

If your rock cakes are hard and dry, then one of these things has happened. Maybe you have overbaked them? Perhaps you have over-mixed them? Could you have failed to blend the butter through well enough before adding the egg and milk?

What do over mixed Rock Cakes look like?

If you over-process your rock cakes, your dough will look gluey rather than crumbly. It will be a bit stretchy when you spoon the mixture out if you’ve gone too far. Rock cakes should be crumbly, not tough.

What’s the difference between a Rock Cake and a Scone?

Rock cakes and scones are similar, although the dough for a rock cake should be even shorter. I mean that rock cake dough is more like a biscuit dough than a soft scone dough. This makes the eating more crumbly than scone-like.

Can I use Self-Raising flour instead of plain and baking powder?

Of course. Just add the extra tsp (2 1/2 tsp) of self-raising flour into the mix so that the ratio of wet to dry is correct. As I mentioned earlier, I don’t keep Self-raising flour to save on storage space and ensure the raising agent is fresh.

5 from 4 votes

5 stars tells us you love the recipe

becs-table.com.au

These old time favourite tea time treats will defiantly please anyone you offer them too. Rock cakes are a little like scones, but different enough that you must try them.

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Prep Time 10 minutes mins

Cook Time 25 minutes mins

Total Time 35 minutes mins

Difficulty Easy

Equipment

Thermomix (optional)

Ingredients

30 g sultanas I used a total of 90g of dried fruit, you can use anything you like
30 g currants
30 g dried cherries
300 g plain flour
2 1/2 tsp baking powder
½ tsp flaked salt or ¼ tsp fine salt
1/2 tsp mixed spice or 1 tsp if you like the flavour
90 g caster sugar
20 g raw sugar or a courser sugar than caster for sprinkling on top
100 g unsalted butter cold cubes
1 egg beaten
125 g milk

Instructions

Thermomix Method:

Set oven to 200°c or 180°c fan
Boil the jug, weigh the dried fruit into a bowl, when the water has boiled pour the water over the dried fruit and set aside for 5 minutes. Once the fruit has plumped up a bit drain in a sieve or colander.
Line a couple of cookies sheets with baking paper. No need if you’re using good non-stick pans.
Weigh the flour, baking powder, spice, sugar and cold butter cubes into the TM bowl, pop on the lid and put the MC in place. Mix for 10 seconds/speed 6
Weigh the egg and milk into the TM bowl and mix again 5 seconds/speed 4
Add in the drained fruit and mix on reverse speed 3 seconds/speed 4
Place spoonfuls of the dough mixture onto your prepared oven trays (I got 11 rock cakes from this batch)
Sprinkle with a little raw sugar then Bake until golden brown (around 20 mins)
Cool on a cake rack,

Conventional Method:

Set oven to 200°c or 180°c fan
Boil the jug, weigh the dried fruit into a bowl, when the water has boiled pour the water over the dried fruit and set aside for 5 minutes. Once the fruit has plumped up a bit drain in a sieve or colander.
Line a couple of cookies sheets with baking paper. No need if you’re using good non-stick pans.
Weigh the flour, baking powder and mixed spice into a bowl and mix with a whisk or fork to combine.
Rub the butter into the flour with your fingertips
Add sugar and drained dried fruit along with the egg and milk, mix to form a stiff dough
Place spoonfuls of the dough mixture onto your prepared oven trays (I got 11 portions)
Sprinkle with a little raw sugar then Bake until golden brown (around 20 mins)
Cool on cake rack,

Notes

These will keep for 3 – 4 days in an airtight container
Don’t over mix.
Don’t overbake.
Take them out when they start to appear golden brown. Too dark and they’ll dry out.

If you like rock cakes….

Lemon and Blueberry, sour cream mini cakes These are delicate little cakes that would be brilliant even served as a dessert. Make a blueberry couli and serve with chantilly cream. Yum.
Cupcakes that taste like doughnuts What can you say, everyone loves a doughnut!
Hummingbird scones are delicious. We made them at one of our bake club meetings and loved them.
Scones. This recipe comes complete with a free mini course.