If you’ve ever been to a Betty’s Tea Room you’ll not fail to have seen or tasted their Fat Rascals. I hear it’s a closely guarded secret recipe, yet many interpretations can be found on the internet. This is my adapted variation of one such recipe.
Makes 6-7 Large Rascals or 12 Little Rascals
Ingredients
1 Large Egg
150g plain flour, sieved
150g Self Raising flour, sieved
1 tsp Baking powder
130g cold butter, chopped into cubes
90g Caster Sugar
Grated Zest of one Lemon
1/2 tsp ground Mixed Spice
40g chopped Glacé Cherries
150g mixed dried fruit such as currants, sultanas and raisins. Drained after soaking in warm water to plump up the fruit and soften.
50ml Milk
Decorations
Glacé Cherry halves and Blanched Almonds
Caster Sugar for dredging.
Method
1 Preheat oven to 180 deg Fan assisted
2 Sieve all the flours and baking powder into a mixing bowl. Add the butter and give your hands some exercise by rubbing together until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs.
3 Add the Caster Sugar, Lemon Zest, Mixed Spice, Chopped Glace Cherries and drained Mixed Dried Fruit until well combined.
4 Add the beaten egg and enough milk (50ml) to combine mixture together into a soft, not too sticky dough. Add more milk if required.
5 Form the dough mixture into 6 Large or 12 Little Rascals. It helps to weight the total amount of dough and then weight each Rascal into the 6 or 12 equal sizes. Top with Blanched Almonds and Glace cherry halves. Place these onto a none stick baking tray.
6 Bake for 15- 20 mins for the Large Rascals. 10 – 15 mins for Little Rascals.
7 Once out of the oven, dust with Caster sugar
