My Mum was an excellent cook and when I was growing up I used to help in the kitchen quite a lot making meals as well as baking cakes and biscuits.  When it was time to leave home I bought a little box and some blank postcards and wrote down all my favourite recipes and one of those was Rock Cakes.  I'm going to share that recipe with you today.  As you will have probably started to gather I like recipes that you can customise to your own taste and this is no exception!

ROCK CAKES

INGREDIENTS

1. 8oz Self Raising Flour
2. 4oz Sugar
3. 4oz hard baking margarine (like Stork)
4. 1 egg
5. half a teaspoon of mixed spice
6. 2oz sultanas

METHOD

1. Put the flour and margarine into a mixing bowl and rub together with your fingers until combined.
2. Stir in the sugar, mixed spice and sultanas.
3. Beat the egg in a cup and then add to the mix and stir in well - this takes a little bit of effort and the mixture is quite stiff.
4. Grease a baking sheet and place little heaps of mixture in rows until you have used up all the mixture.  You should make about 9 or 10 rock cakes depending on the size.
5. Bake at Gas mark 6 (200 degrees C) for 10-15 minutes until they are golden.
6. Leave to cook for a couple of minutes before removing to a cooling rack.

CUSTOMISATION
Basically, the flour, sugar, margarine and egg make up the basic recipe and you can flavour the cakes however you like.  I have made them with 1oz of coconut and 2oz of chopped glace cherries many times and recently I tried out a new flavour which was the zest of an orange and 2oz of dried cranberries and they were delicious.

I hope that you have fun trying out your own ideas - let me know how you get on.  My daughter keeps asking me to make them with chocolate chips in so I think I will be trying that next!

CRANBERRY AND ORANGE ROCK CAKES