Quick Summer Holiday Baking – Coconut Rock Buns.

Quick Coconut Rock Buns

I remember making and eating coconut rock buns when I was little. Also known as coconut rock cakes, this is a really easy recipe. The kids and I made them last week. They were made and ready to eat within half an hour! Not too bad. So, if you’re having one of those days when you can’t be bothered to go out, and the kids need something to do, then this is your summer holiday treat!

The bad news for me was that I discovered my scales were broken when I went to make them, so I had to guess the measurements. I roughly worked out that things could be rounded to the nearest cup sizes. Surprisingly, they worked well! I must have guessed the ingredient weights correctly. I’m looking at this as a positive; it means that you don’t have to be exact, which is great when baking with children.

Coconut Rock Buns Recipe

• 1 cup/120g self raising flour
• Half a cup/100g caster sugar
• 115g salted butter, cut into cubes. (I cut a normal 250g pack at just under the halfway point).
• 1 cup dessicated coconut. If you don’t like coconut, you can also use raisins  (it’d be the weight equivalent rather the cup equivalent, though, and that’d be just over 100 grams).
• 1 large egg
• 100-150ml milk. Take it easy and see how it goes. I just splosh it in and don’t measure exactly.

How to Make Coconut Rock Buns

Using fingers and thumbs, rub the flour and butter together in a good-sized bowl. This is easy and doesn’t take as long as you think it will. You can cheat and whazz it in a food processor, but that just makes for more washing up.

Stir in the sugar and coconut.

Add the egg and milk and mix into a stiff dough. It’s a bit like making ugly scones, so that’s the sort of consistency you’re after. I might have added too much milk to mine, which is why they’re a bit flat. I don’t think it matters that much, as they still taste pretty yum.

Plop some dollops onto two lined baking trays (we used two dessert spoons to help) and bake in the oven for about 15 minutes. I’ve got a gas oven, so it’s Gas Mark 6. Google tells me that that’s 180 degrees C  for fan, 200 degrees C for no fan! Or 400 F.

Be warned, I gave these to a friend’s offspring, calling them coconut rock cakes. They looked at them and declared that they weren’t cakes at all and didn’t want them. As soon as I changed the name to rock buns, they ate them all…