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Fat Rascals

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Fat Rascals

"Please can you let me know how to make fat rascals," writes Dennis Smith, of Ewell, Surrey. "They're a cross between a scone and a rock cake, and I've eaten them at Betty's Tearooms in York, but apparently the recipe is a closely guarded secret." We asked Yorkshire-born food writer and fellow fat-rascal fan, Liz Franklin, for her own delicious take on the recipe.

Preparation time:: 30 minutes
Cooking time:: 15 minutes to 20 minutes
Total time:: 45 minutes to 50 minutes

Serves:: 6

Ingredients

1 medium egg, lightly beaten
150g plain flour, sieved
150g self-raising flour, sieved
1 tsp baking powder
130g cold butter, cubed
90g caster sugar
Grated zest of 1 orange
Grated zest of 1 lemon
1 tsp ground cinnamon
½ tsp freshly grated nutmeg
150g mixed dried fruit (try currants, raisins and sultanas in equal quantities)
50ml milk

To finish:
1 medium egg yolk
1 tbsp water
Pinch of salt
Glacé cherries and blanched almonds, to decorate

Method

Preheat the oven to 200°C, gas mark 6.
Sieve both flours and the baking powder into a large bowl. Add the butter and rub into the flour until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. Add the sugar, citrus zests, spices and dried fruit and mix well. Add the beaten egg and enough milk (about 50ml) to bring the mixture together into a soft dough. Form the mixture into 6 saucer-sized rounds, about 2cm deep.
Mix the egg yolk, water and salt together to make a glaze and brush this over the fat rascals. Decorate with the cherries and almonds. Transfer to a non-stick baking tray and bake for 15-20 minutes or until golden brown.
Fat rascals are best served warm from the oven but they can be frozen and reheated in a low oven. You can serve them alone or with plenty of butter and they're also gorgeous for brunch served with vanilla-scented Mascarpone.

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Showing 1 - 7 of 7 comments

Thanks very much for the great recipe, and to all the readers who made comments; it is so refreshing to see a forum filled with comments which are obviously from people who have actually tried the recipes, and not 'mmm sounds yummy must try this soon' types of post. You are obviously a lot of dedicated cooks out there!

I have just made these and took the idea of straycats where I used the cut peel instead of zest, and I agree, it works great (well I have not tried with the zest, but I don't see how they could taste any better!). These are massive though, is it really meant to make just 6? I did them 2cm high and like saucers as described.
They taste like a current/hot cross bun to me without the doughyness and I shall be making and eating these again, they are great and easy to make too as dough would have taken longer. I did not decorate mine other than with the egg gloss and added some brown sugar, as I like the taste and appearance of that on biscuits/cakes/buns errm anything sweet and used half the amount of spice as I prefer to err on the side of caution with that so as to not overpower the lovely other flavours. I used stork marg and not butter in case that may have been why took longer to cook; Mine took 30 mins at 200 c in my fan oven.

bananabunch 06 November 2011 13:31

Thanks very much for the great recipe, and to all the readers who made comments; it is so refreshing to see a forum filled with comments which are obviously from people who have actually tried the recipes, and not 'mmm sounds yummy must try this soon' types of post. You are obviously a lot of dedicated cooks out there! I have just made these and took the idea of straycats where I used the cut peel instead of zest, and I agree, it works great (well I have not tried with the zest, but I don't see how they could taste any better!). These are massive though, is it really meant to make just 6? I did them 2cm high and like saucers as described. They taste like a current/hot cross bun to me without the doughyness and I shall be making and eating these again, they are great and easy to make too as dough would have taken longer. I did not decorate mine other than with the egg gloss and added some brown sugar, as I like the taste and appearance of that on biscuits/cakes/buns errm anything sweet and used half the amount of spice as I prefer to err on the side of caution with that so as to not overpower the lovely other flavours. I used stork marg and not butter in case that may have been why took longer to cook; Mine took 30 mins at 200 c in my fan oven.