Rock Cakes - An Heirloom Recipe Series

They Taste Better Than They Sound! - Extra Food Chat with Kath

Welcome to another edition of Extra Food Chat with Kath!

Of all the recipes Grandma made, I think she made rock cakes the most.

Which as a child disappointed me to no end, and I refused to eat them. They contained dried fruit, a big no no to me as a child (why would anyone eat fruit in a cake?!), and basically they weren’t shortbread which is what I was always hoping for.

As I shared in the last edition of Extra Food Chat with Kath, Grandma’s shortbread were my favourite thing she made. These rock cakes on the other hand, probably sat further at the other end of the spectrum, along with rhubarb crumble and fruit cake.

I was not interested in fruit, fresh or dried, in or on my cakes or desserts as a child, I even ate pavlova plain without cream and fruit back then!

Now, I can see why Grandma made these so often. I daresay they are even easier to make than scones, and everyone (but me) seemed to enjoy them. The ingredients needed for these are simple, so it’s likely you’d almost always have them to hand.

The idea of a cake that is a ‘rock’ may sound a bit off-putting, however, they are called that only as that is what they most resemble looks wise, not in texture or flavour!

I assumed rock cakes might have been a Australian recipe, but from the little research I’ve done on rock cakes it seems not. They were something that was promoted in the UK by the Ministry of Food during WW2 as they required less eggs and sugar than regular cakes, and were therefore more ration friendly.

I suppose such recipes made their way to Australia too, and my Grandma seems to have learnt to make them earlier on in her life (possibly as a teenager during WW2) as there are a couple of places this rock cakes recipe is written down.

When Grandma served these it was always morning or afternoon tea, with tea of course, and butter to serve. My family always cut the rock cake in half across the middle (like a scone) and topped both cut sides with some butter. I used to think this a little strange, what kind of cake needs more butter when you eat it? I now know, butter makes everything better.

When we would go to my Grandparent’s house or they would come to us, Grandma would have her trusty white tupperware container, lined with greaseproof paper filled with something she had made. I would be excited until I saw that the container house rock cakes, or even worse, fruit cake! If at their place, we’d sit at the built in table at their kitchen, or around their table in the informal lounge/dining area near the big window that looked out on to their backyard, which was mostly filled with a massive rock, then bushland and a creek below.

If rock cakes were on the menu, I doubt I sat for long at the table, and went about finding something else to eat or drinking water out of Grandma’s colourful glass cups (I always wanted one that was a close to the colour pink as possible, of course).

If someone put a plate of these in front of me now, or opened a tupperware container filled with them, I’d be quite happy to sit and have a cup of tea with one. How we change with age!

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