Chef Thomas
All-Butter Shortbread Fingers
The plainest biscuit in the tin and the hardest one to stop eating, three ingredients and a slow oven turning good butter into something quietly perfect with a cup of tea.
Culinary Explorer
A cooking platform built around craft, culture, and the stories behind what we eat.
Rock Cakes
Created by Chef Thomas
Craggy little fruit buns made with butter, flour, currants and not much else, ready in the time it takes to boil a kettle and worth every rough, golden bite.
Pastries & Cookies
British
Budget Friendly
Quick Meal
10 min
Active Time
15 min cook•25 min total
Yield10 rock cakes
It's started raining and you don't quite want to read but you don't quite want to sit still either. This is what rock cakes are for.
They take twenty minutes from start to finish, demand nothing fancier than a bowl and a wooden spoon, and they came out of a time when butter and sugar were rationed and people made cake anyway. That's the thing about rock cakes. They were never trying to be elegant. The whole point is the craggy top, the rough heap shape, the deliberate refusal to look like a proper bun. A recipe is a conversation, not a contract, and this one barely bothers with the formalities.
I make a tray of these when the kitchen needs a smell. Butter rubbed into flour, currants tipped in by the handful, demerara crunched over the top before they go in the oven. By the time the kettle has boiled they're starting to colour. By the time the tea has steeped they're done. I wrote it down in the notebook years ago: rock cakes, rainy Tuesday, enough.
Eat one warm, standing at the counter, before anyone else get to them. That's the cook's privilege. We're only making dinner, except this isn't dinner, this is the small unnecessary thing that turns an afternoon into a kind one.
The technique, the tradition, and the story behind every dish.
Discover Culinary ExplorerIngredients
self-raising flour
Quantity
225g
mixed spice
Quantity
1 teaspoon
fine sea salt
Quantity
pinch
cold unsalted butter
Quantity
100g
cubed
golden caster sugar
Quantity
75g
currants
Quantity
100g
or a mix of currants and sultanas
mixed peel (optional)
Quantity
25g
lemon zest
Quantity
half a lemon
large egg
Quantity
1
whole milk
Quantity
1-2 tablespoons
demerara sugar
Quantity
2 tablespoons
for sprinkling
| Ingredient | Quantity |
|---|---|
| self-raising flour | 225g |
| mixed spice | 1 teaspoon |
| fine sea salt | pinch |
| cold unsalted buttercubed | 100g |
| golden caster sugar | 75g |
| currantsor a mix of currants and sultanas | 100g |
| mixed peel (optional) | 25g |
| lemon zest | half a lemon |
| large egg | 1 |
| whole milk | 1-2 tablespoons |
| demerara sugarfor sprinkling | 2 tablespoons |
Equipment Needed
- •Large mixing bowl
- •Baking sheet lined with parchment
- •Wire cooling rack
Instructions
- 1
Heat the oven
Set the oven to 200C/180C fan. Line a baking sheet with parchment. That's the whole preparation. No tin to grease, no batter to fold, no resting time. This is a recipe that wants to be in the oven before you've quite decided to make it.
- 2
Rub butter into flour
Tip the flour, mixed spice and salt into a wide bowl. Add the cold cubed butter. Rub it in with your fingertips, lifting the mixture as you go to keep it cool, until it looks like rough breadcrumbs with a few larger flecks of butter still visible. You're not after perfection. The bigger flecks melt in the oven and leave little pockets of richness behind.
Cold butter and warm hands are the enemies here. Work quickly. If the kitchen is hot, run your wrists under the cold tap for a moment before you start. - 3
Add sugar and fruit
Stir in the caster sugar, the currants, the mixed peel if you're using it, and the lemon zest. Mix it through with a wooden spoon so the fruit is evenly scattered. The smell at this point, sweet butter, citrus, dried fruit, is half the reason to make these in the first place.
- 4
Bring it together
Crack the egg into a small bowl, add a tablespoon of milk, and beat with a fork. Pour into the flour mixture and bring it together with the wooden spoon, then your hands. You want a stiff, rough dough that just holds together when you squeeze a bit in your palm. If it feels dry and won't come together, add the second tablespoon of milk. Not more than that. Rock cakes are meant to be stiff, not soft.
Resist the urge to add more liquid. A wet dough spreads in the oven and gives you flat scones instead of craggy little heaps. Stiff is right. - 5
Heap onto the tray
Using two forks or your hands, drop ten rough heaps of the dough onto the lined baking sheet, leaving a bit of space between them. Don't smooth them. Don't shape them. The whole point of a rock cake is the craggy, irregular top. The peaks catch the heat and go properly golden, the dips stay paler, and you end up with something that looks like it was made by someone who had better things to do than fuss.
- 6
Sprinkle and bake
Scatter the demerara sugar generously over the tops. Don't be shy with it. The sugar gives you that crunchy, crystalline finish that makes a rock cake worth eating warm. Slide the tray into the oven and bake for fifteen to twenty minutes, until the peaks are deep golden and the bottoms are firm and pale brown when you lift one. Trust your nose. When the kitchen smells like buttery toast and warm fruit, they're nearly there.
- 7
Cool briefly and eat
Lift them onto a wire rack with a palette knife and let them sit for five minutes, no longer. Eat one warm, standing at the counter, while the kettle goes on for tea. That's the cook's privilege. The rest will be gone by tomorrow morning, which is exactly as it should be.
Chef Tips
- •The dough should feel almost too dry. If you can shape it into a smooth ball, you've added too much liquid and you'll end up with flat scones instead of proper craggy rock cakes. Stiff and rough is the whole point.
- •Demerara on top is non-negotiable. It gives you that sandy, crunchy crust that contrasts with the soft buttery interior. Caster sugar will dissolve into nothing. Use the proper crystals.
- •These are at their best on the day they're made. By the second day they've gone a bit dry, which is fine, that's what tea is for. Split one and butter it. Better than throwing it away and not far off how they were eaten in the first place.
Advance Preparation
- •Best eaten the day they're made, ideally still warm from the oven. They keep in an airtight tin for two days, though they firm up considerably.
- •The unbaked dough heaps can be frozen on a tray, then bagged up. Bake from frozen, adding a few extra minutes to the cooking time. Useful when an unexpected visit needs answering with something warm.
Frequently Asked Questions
Nutrition Information
1 serving (about 70g)
Calories
235 calories
Total Fat
9 g
Saturated Fat
5 g
Trans Fat
0 g
Unsaturated Fat
3 g
Cholesterol
40 mg
Sodium
75 mg
Total Carbohydrates
36 g
Dietary Fiber
1 g
Sugars
18 g
Protein
4 g
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