Recipe: Angellica Bell's Jamaican Rock Buns
Not too sweet, not too hard, Angellica's Jamaican Rock Buns are inspired by her gran's Caribbean infused recipe
If you ask your parents about rock buns they’ll probably reminisce about how they learned to make them at school in Home Economics – the name for a cooking class many years ago. My gran used to make them all the time.
I liked them because they were dry, not too sweet and looked like… well, rocks.
We called my gran ‘Mama’ and she was a cook in the Caribbean, so she would make hers with a bit of extra spice and coconut. Here’s my version of her Jamaican rock buns.
MAKES 12
Ingredients
75g (½ cup) raisins
225g (1¾ cups) self-raising flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
⅛ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon grated nutmeg
½ teaspoon ground mixed spice
100g (½ cup minus 1 tablespoon) unsalted butter at room temperature
75g demerara
(brown) sugar
40g (½ cup) desiccated
(dried shredded) coconut
1 egg
4 tablespoons milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
granulated sugar, for sprinkling
Method
- Put the raisins into a small bowl, cover them with warm water, then put the bowl aside to let the raisins soak.
- Preheat the oven to 200°C/400°F/Gas mark 6. Pop a piece of baking parchment on a large baking tray.
- Put the flour, baking powder, salt and spices in a large mixing bowl. Cut the butter into small cubes, then add it to the flour mixture. With your fingertips, rub the butter into the flour until the mixture looks like tiny little breadcrumbs.
(Don’t give up if your fingers start aching!)
- Tip the raisins into a sieve over the sink to drain. Add the raisins, demerara sugar and desiccated coconut to the flour mixture. Then mix everything together with a wooden spoon.
- Crack the egg into a jug or medium bowl (see page 17), add the milk and vanilla extract and mix everything together with a fork. Tip this into the mixing bowl with the dry ingredients and, using a wooden spoon or spatula, mix everything together until it forms a light, airy dough. Don’t over-mix – stop stirring when everything is just combined.
- Using a tablespoon, blob the mixture onto your baking sheet, spaced well apart, to form 12 rough mounds. If your baking tray isn’t large enough, that’s fine, you can bake in two batches. Sprinkle the rock buns with granulated sugar.
- Bake the rock buns in the oven for 12–15 minutes, until golden brown. Take them out of the oven and leave to cool for 10 minutes on the baking tray, before placing the rock buns on a wire rack to cool completely. These are best eaten the same day, but I don’t mind them a bit crumbly a day later! I also freeze mine.
Where can I find more Angellica Bell recipes?
This recipe is taken from Fantastic Eats! by Angellica Bell and posted here by permission of the publishers Quadrille.
When is Angellica Bell on Scala Radio?
Listen to Angellica Bell on Scala Radio on Saturdays and Sundays from 10am.