Home › The Principles of Cookery › Rock Cakes
Rock Cakes
No. 1.--Whisk three whole eggs till light. Mix with them half a pound of powdered sugar, a quarter of a pound of flour, and a table-spoonful of currants. Beat all thoroughly together, drop the dough in lumps upon a buttered tin, and with a fork make them look as rough as possible. Bake the cakes in a moderate oven, and when they are done enough store them in a tin canister till wanted for use. No. 2.--Beat four ounces of butter to cream. Add four ounces of sugar, two well-whisked eggs, a pound of flour, and a handful of currants, picked and dried. Beat the mixture thoroughly, and bake in small cakes as above. No. 3 (very plain).--Rub a little butter or dripping into a pound of flour. Add a pinch of salt, a tea-spoonful of baking-powder, a dessert-spoonful of sugar, two or three grates of nutmeg, and a handful of picked and dried currants. Mix the dry ingredients thoroughly, add milk or water to make a light dough, and bake immediately in a well-heated oven. No. 4.--Rub a quarter of a pound of butter into half a pound of flour, and add four ounces of moist sugar, a few currants, and a tea-spoonful of baking-powder. Mix to a stiff paste with an egg and a little milk. Bake as before.
Four versions of the same idea, ranging from an almost meringue-like batter to a plain rubbed-in dough. None gives a time or a yield, so the notes below fill the gaps.
- Make them roughThe defining instruction is the fork work in No. 1: the craggy surface is the whole point, and a smoothed-over mound bakes into a bun rather than a rock cake. Drop the dough in ragged heaps and rough the tops up rather than shaping them.
- Oven temperaturesA "moderate oven" is usually reckoned at about 350F/180C. The "well-heated oven" of No. 3 is hotter, somewhere in the region of 400-425F/200-220C, which suits a baking-powder dough that must go in immediately.
- Timing and yieldSmall cakes of this size take 12 to 18 minutes; they are done when firm at the edges and lightly coloured. A pound of flour makes roughly 16 to 20 cakes, No. 1 rather fewer.
- CurrantsThese are dried Zante currants, the small black raisin, not fresh redcurrants or blackcurrants. "Picked and dried" means sorted for stalks and grit and spread out to dry after rinsing; modern packet currants need only a quick look over.
- Moist sugarThe "moist sugar" of No. 4 is unrefined soft sugar; light brown soft sugar is the closest thing on a supermarket shelf. "Powdered sugar" in No. 1 means finely ground white sugar, closer to caster than to modern icing sugar.
- Spoon sizesA dessert-spoonful is about two teaspoons. Victorian spoon measures were not standardised, and a tablespoon may have run a little larger than the modern one, but not enough to matter for a spoonful of currants.
- No. 2 needs liquidAs written, four ounces of butter and two eggs will not bring a pound of flour together, and there is no raising agent. Either scale the flour back to about half a pound or add milk a spoonful at a time until it forms a stiff dough; a teaspoon of baking powder brings it into line with the other versions.
- No. 1 behaves differentlyHalf a pound of sugar to a quarter pound of flour and three eggs gives a much wetter, more meringue-like mixture than the others, though the recipe still calls it dough and expects the lumps to take a forked surface. Expect it to spread and crisp rather than dome; parchment on the tin is a safeguard.
- StorageThe tin canister is sound advice: these stale quickly and are best within two days. They revive with three or four minutes in a warm oven.
Rock cakes are generally said to take their name from their appearance rather than their texture, though the two have often been confused since. They belong to the large Victorian family of cheap, quickly made tea cakes that needed no yeast and no proving, which is why Cassell's can offer four versions in one entry, from an egg-rich party version down to one described plainly as "very plain" and made with dripping. The rise of chemical raising agents in the middle of the nineteenth century seems to have made this kind of baking possible for households without a bread oven or a cook, and the rock cake became a familiar fixture of the period's home baking. It is often said to have gained a second life in Britain during the Second World War, when ministry recipes promoted it as a way to make a little fat, sugar and dried fruit go a long way.