Fiona's Favourite Bake Off Recipe

Can you help with our latest campaign? Here’s Fiona’s favourite Bake Off recipe for some inspiration.

Hosting a Bake Off for Brain Cancer is super simple and easy and involves two of my absolute passions in life – helping brain cancer patients and baking!

I remember as a young girl, I would walk four doors up the street and hang out with my Nan. Everything about her was ‘old school’, it was a life where there were really very few conveniences, but she made it look easy.  When my Nan passed away, I would look to my mother for these lessons in life and one of those was the ability to bake.  For me this skill grew into a more loving sense of what it was able to provide to others, and the smiles on my friends or family faces when I would say “I made that”.  Before long, it is really now an expectation that I will bake something, either to share or as a gift.  Having friends over for morning tea, arriving for dinner and bringing dessert, homemade gifts at Christmas or a share plate when I arrive at the salon to get my hair done.  To me, it says ‘I have time for you, and I appreciate you’.    

Need some inspiration for your Bake Off for Brain Cancer?

Some of the best recipes are the easiest ones – a favourite quick bake being my Pop’s Rock Cakes, which are always a hit!

Basic Rock Cakes

2 cups self-raising flour

1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/3 cup castor sugar

90g butter, chopped

1 cup sultanas

2 tablespoons mixed peel

1 egg, lightly beaten

1/3 cup milk

Step One

Sift flour, cinnamon and sugar into medium bowl, add butter, rub in with fingertips. Stir in fruit and peel with wooden spoon.

Step Two

Make well in centre of dry ingredients, add egg, then enough milk to give a moist but still firm consistency. If mixture is too soft, cakes will spread too much during the cooking time.

Step Three

Please two heaped tablespoons of mixture onto lightly greased oven trays. Leave about 5cm between each cake to allow them to spread slightly.

Step Four

Sprinkle cakes with a little extra sugar, if desired. Bake in moderately hot oven for about 15 minutes or until lightly browned. Use metal spatula to loosen cakes on trays; cool on trays.

Cakes can be prepared up to three days ahead, keep in an airtight container.