You won't need your pick

I'm not sure why I decided to make rock cakes (p52) for my morning teas this week. I guess it was just the first recipe I saw that looked interesting. Rock cakes are basically just plain buns with currants and mixed peel in them. That might not be everyone's cup of tea, but it sounded pretty good to me!

It was a fairly quick recipe to whip up, too - just rub butter into flour, add sugar and fruit, then stir through beaten egg and a little milk. I think I used a little too much milk, because my mixture was just a bit wetter than it should have been. Oh well.

The next thing is to blob lumps of the rock cake mixture onto a tray. According to the recipe, there should be enough for 15 'rocky heaps',  but I barely got 12, and those weren't particularly large. Maybe they're supposed to be really small rocks. Anyway, the tray went into the oven for just over 10 minutes, and, a mere 20 minutes after first pulling out a mixing bowl, I had a nice tray of rock cakes.

I'd always assumed from the name that rock cakes would be hard and crunchy (hence the old "take your pick" joke) but actually they were lovely and soft. Quite plain, but the currants and occasional chunk of peel save them from being too boring.

I don't think they're going to keep very well though - even at morning tea today my rock cake was a little drier than the one I had last night. Still, they'll do me for morning teas for a couple more days at least - if they get too dry, I can always give each one a little zap in the microwave before eating it!