Chocolate Caramel Slice

This is a bit of an Aussie classic, and is totally rich and sweet and addictive. I took a tray of these to a potluck the other night. My friend Kate tried one and decided that she was skipping all the other food at the party (quiches, salads, crumbles and pies) and was going to eat nothing but these for her dinner!

Base
2 cups self raising flour
250g butter
1 1/2 cups dessicated coconut
1 cup fine sugar

Caramel Layer
2 tins of sweetened condensed milk (around 400g each)
60 grams of butter
60mls (4 tablespoons)golden syrup

Topping
300g dark chocolate
40g copha/vegetable shortening


Method

Turn the oven on to warm up, to 180 degrees. Start by making the base. Put all the dry base ingredients in a bowl. Melt the butter, allow to cool a little and then mix into the dry ingredients. Line the base of a baking dish with baking paper (allowing the paper to go up two sides to help you get the slice our later). Tip the base into the tin and spread and press down with the back of a spoon.

Bake for 10 - 15 minutes until lightly golden. Cool.

While the base is baking, start the caramel - put all the ingredients in a pot and heat them, stirring continuously for 8-10 minutes - it will thicken and go golden. Pour over the biscuit base and spread out to ensure the base is covered. Cool until set (this will take 3 or 4 hours in the fridge).

Then, in a double boiler, heat the chocolate and copha and stir together till melted and pourable. Pour over the caramel and biscuit, and then cool again. Cut into squares to serve.

White Christmas

The white christmas of my childhood had copha and milk powder in it, if I recall correctly. A lack of ability to find copha in the shops here prompted the development of this very rich and tasty version. I hope you enjoy it as much as my friends have!

• 600g white chocolate
• 2 cups rice bubbles
• 100g red glace cherries
• 100g green glace cherries
• 100g silvered almonds
• 100g dried cranberries
• 80g sultanas
• 1 cup desiccated coconut

Method

1. Line a 30cm x 20cm (base) baking pan with baking paper. Melt the chocolate in a heatproof bowl over a saucepan of simmering water (don’t let bowl touch water). Fold in the remaining ingredients. Pour mixture into the prepared pan, pressing down with a large metal spoon. Refrigerate for 4 hours or until set.
2. Turn slice onto a chopping board. Using a knife that has been dipped in hot water, cut into squares. Serve.

Coconut Mango Cake

This cake is both delicious and pretty. The mango gives it the most glorious gold colour and the taste combination of coconut and mango is sensational. You can use either fresh mango puree, or tinned at a pinch. Ingredients 

330g caster sugar 

250g butter 

4 eggs 

160ml mango puree 

2 cups desiccated coconut 

375g self raising flour 

Preheat your oven to 180 degrees. 

Grease and line a cake tin (baker's grease will work really well too... hmmm must post the recipe for that!). 

Beat the sugar and butter in a mixing bowl until combined (not light and fluffy, just combined) then add the eggs one at a time - don't beat strongly, just to combine. 

Grab a wooden spoon and stir in the coconut and mango puree and then the flour. Spread into your prepared cake tin - the mixture is quite thick. 

Bake for about 1 and a half hours. Stand for a few minutes in the tin before turning out on to a wire rack; flip so it is top side up to cool. 

Icing: 1 and a half cups of icing sugar 1 egg white 2 tablespoons mango puree 3/4 cup desiccated coconut Beat the egg white till foamy... gradually beat in the icing sugar a tablespoon at a time. Stir in the puree and coconut, and then spread onto the cake.

Vegan Coconut Cake

Two of my colleagues are leaving Geneva for the flatter climes of Australia. One of them is, like me, a foodie, so I just had to cook something for their farewell morning tea.

First up... a vegan cake. My friend James is a vegan and every time we have a morning or afternoon tea he is left holding his cup of coffee unable to eat any of the goodies. So I decided that this time around he would not be left cakeless. I wanted to make something that wasn't "typical" vegan food, all wholemeal flours soy and treacle, but something light, fluffy, properly cake-like. So I baked this very yummy coconut cake, only to get to work to discover that James is off this week on holidays. How frustrating! Still, my other colleagues wolfed it down so it was still a success story.

Coconut Cake

3 cups of self raising flour
2 cups caster sugar
1 c dessicated coconut
3/4 tsp salt
2 cups coconut milk
2/3rds of a cup of vegetable oil (something without a strong flavour)
1 tsp vanilla
2 tspns vinegar

Start by putting your oven on to heat up to 180 degrees. Grease and sprinkle a ring tin with flour (I in fact use baker's grease - recipe to come).

In a your mixer combine the flour, dessicated coconut, sugar and salt. Stir in the coconut milk and oil and mix until you get a smooth batter. Just before pouring into the cake tin, stir in the vinegar - this step seems to be the key to getting a lovely light cake with a soft texture and golden crust.

Bake around 1 hour 15 until a toothpick inserted into the centre comes away clean. Don't open the oven to test it until it has been in at least 25 minutes or it will sink! Cool briefly in the pan then turn onto a cooling rack. This cake is beautifully moist and needs no icing.

Coconut Apricot Slice

Slices seem to be a real Australian phenomenon. I haven't really been able to find them anywhere else, apart from the ubiquitous brownie. But a slice is a beautiful, simple, delicious thing, and I encourage you to take the time to explore and experiment with it. To explain, a slice is a sort of cake made in a shallow rectangular baking tray. Sometimes they are baked, but often the recipes are no-bake, so are wonderful cooking activities to do with children. Being rectangular too, they are also very easily to slice up and share around.

Here is a great no-bake recipe, which is quick to make and always a hit.

Coconut Apricot Slice

250gm unsalted butter
400g white chocolate, broken up
3 cups dried apricots, chopped
100ml cream
500g shortbread biscuits
1 cup dessicated coconut

Line the base of a rectangular baking tray (I used one that is 28cmx44 but you could use 2 18x25cm trays instead) with baking paper.

Put the shortbread biscuits in a strong plastic bag and use a rolling pint to crush the biscuits up to crumbs.

Melt the butter and cream in a saucepan, bring to the boil and remove from the heat. Break in the white chocolate and stir till melted and combined. Cool a little then add the biscuits, apricots and dessicated coconut. Press the mixture into your prepared tray and chill in the fridge for an hour or so.

Ice with lemon butter icing: 50g melted butter, 1 tablespoon lemon juice and 4 cups icing sugar. Chill again and slice in the tray to serve.

ANZAC biscuits - step by step

Let me quickly start by saying to my American readers that ANZAC biscuits are NO relation to the scones that you call biscuits. They are, to you, cookies. I have always wondered what strange twist took place in the universe to have scones renamed biscuits and biscuits renamed cookies in the US. Anyone out there have a clue?

Anyway, I have gotten diverted from my goal, which was to introduce you all to an Australian (and New Zealand) speciality, the ANZAC biscuit. This crisp edged, chewy centred delight has to be experienced to be believed. Unbelievably addictive, I recommend making a double batch of these so that you can give 1 batch away but still have a batch to munch on.

The history of the ANZAC biscuit is sadly not a peaceful one. Named after the Australian and New Zealand Army Corp, these biscuits were made by the wives of soldiers, who sent them to their men. The lack of eggs and milk in the recipe means that these biscuits stay fresh for ages and could be sent through the mail to the men in the trenches.

Whatever the history, I am glad that these exist. Today I will share with you the step by step recipe of how to make them.

Ingredients

• 1 cup plain flour
• 1 cup rolled oats (regular oatmeal) uncooked
• 1 cup desiccated coconut
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 cup butter
• 2 tbsp golden syrup (or honey)
• 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 2 tbsp boiling water

Combine flour, oats, coconut and brown sugar in a bowl.


In a small saucepan, melt the butter and golden syrup

Boil some water, and put two tablespoons of water in a cup. Gently stir in the bicarb soda. Once the bicarb is dissolved, pour into the saucepan of melted butter and golden syrup and give it a gentle stir to combine. The mixture will foam up into a froth.

Pour into the dry ingredients:


and stir until well combined:
Put tablespoons of the mixture on to a baking tray (I use silicone paper underneath). Make sure you leave room for the mix to spread. You can roll balls of mix and press down with a spoon for more perfect looking biscuits.


Bake in a moderate oven (180degrees C/350 F) for 15 minutes, until the biscuits start going golden around the edges (if you like your biscuits completely crisp allow to brown lightly all over). Remember that the biscuits will continue to cook after they come out of the oven! Allow to cool for a while on the tray until the biscuits set enough to move, then move to a wire rack to cool.

Enjoy!