Chocolate cherry coconut slice

This is a super easy slice recipe from Janelle Bloom (published in Super Food Ideas magazine, August 2003, p72), which I used to make semi-regularly for my husband and eldest son.  I haven't made it in at least 4 years, but it has made a reappearance in our kitchen by special request from my hubby.

This is very similar to the chocolate cherry slice you can buy from some bakeries.  The food colouring is entirely optional, but I am so used to seeing the garishly pink version that you can buy, that the pallid version without colouring looks strange to me.  So I content myself with just a few drops and a pale pink result.  The recipe specified cooking chocolate (shudder) - I have used normal Cadbury eating chocolate.  Also in my notes I have written for a firmer result, to use 30g of copha in the topping instead of 60g of butter - I don't have the original recipe, but I assume this was my own change to allow the slice to survive in my son's lunchbox in humid Queensland weather a little better.  I think it tastes better with butter, and this time I have used butter.  I did toy with the idea of leaving the butter out and making it with 260g of milk chocolate instead.  I think that would work okay, but it would probably be harder to slice without the topping cracking once set, but you could use a hot dry knife. 

The slice states that it makes 24 pieces, which is what I cut it into this time, though I think I used to do 20 pieces.  24 pieces does make for quite small squares of slice, but then it is very sweet, so small servings isn't necessarily a bad thing.  But if you were wanting to slice it into pieces the size a bakery normally sells, then the yield of the recipe would be more like 16-20 pieces.

Chocolate cherry coconut slice

Makes 24 small pieces

Base:

• 150g butter, melted
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1.5 cups of plain flour, sifted
• 1 tsp baking powder

Filling:

• 3 cups dessicated coconut
• 395g can sweetened condensed milk
• 2 eggs, lightly beaten
• few drops of pink food colouring, optional
• 200g red glace cherries, chopped

Topping:

• 60g butter, chopped
• 200g milk chocolate

Method:

1. Grease and line an 18 x 28cm slice tin.  Preheat oven to 180C.
2. Base: Combine butter and sugar.  Add flour and baking powder.  Mix well.  Press into pan with a metal spoon.
3. Filling: Combine coconut, milk, eggs, and colouring (if using).  Stir in cherries.  Spoon over base.  
4. Bake for 18-20 minutes, or until light golden.  Cool.  
5. Topping: Melt butter over medium heat.  Reduce heat to low.  Add chocolate, stirring constantly until smooth.  Pour over coconut filling.
6. Refrigerate for 15 minutes to set.
7. Cut into squares to serve. (If you wipe the knife clean between each cut, the pieces will look much cleaner).

I used my Wilton decorating triangle to make a pattern in the chocolate.

Double dip Mars Bar slice

Love chocolate crackles? I used to, though I am not sure I could come at them now with the copha content. So happily I found this recipe, which reminds me of chocolate crackles, but is so much better, with its gooey choc caramel flavour and good quality chocolate topping. There'd be nothing to stop you from making them in individual patty cases for a more authentic chocolate crackle experience - indeed I am thinking of doing exactly that for DS2's next birthday.

Combine 260g chopped Mars Bars with 125g chopped butter in a saucepan. Stir over low heat to melt.

I find the nougat is surprisingly resistant to melting, but then eventually it gives in, and the mixture becomes slightly foamy as it yields to the heat and melts, and then the mixture becomes smooth.

Once it is all smoothly melted together, stir the mixture into 4 cups of rice bubbles and then press into a greased and lined 19-20cm square cake tin. Place into the fridge to chill for about 3 hours or until set. I found it didn't need this long. 30 mins is adequate if you are eager to get the topping on so you can sample a piece ;) .

Melt together 200g good quality milk chocolate and 30g butter. I do this in the microwave on medium, but it could be done in a bowl over a pan of simmering water. I have made this recipe 3 times, using different methods - in the microwave, in a bowl over simmering water, melting them together, melting the butter and chocolate separately and then combining them - each time the result has been the chocolate seizes a bit when combined with the melted butter, and is then quite thick when I spread it over the rice bubble mixture. I suspect I may need to let the butter cool a bit before adding it to the chocolate, though next time I think I might just up the chocolate to 250g and dispense with the butter, though that would mean the topping will be a lot firmer when set - which could have its advantages, but would probably be easier to slice it it before the chocolate is fully hard.

Here you can see how thick the melted chocolate and butter mixture was because it had seized slightly. It tasted fine; it wasn't grainy, but it probably wasn't as glossy as it could have been. I decided to take advantage of the thick chocolate and butter mixture this time to make a pattern in the top using my Wilton decorating triangle.

Place in fridge again to allow the topping to set before slicing. Use a hot dry knife to slice into approx. 20-24 squares.

These are so much yummier than chocolate crackles, which tend to either be rock hard when they have just come out of the fridge, or else soft and melted and falling apart. This slice on the other hand is firm if eaten straight from the fridge (but not hard), or slightly gooey (in a scrumptious way - like soft caramel) if left to warm a little at room temperature. It also doesn't leave you with the unpleasant aftertaste that the copha in traditional chocolate crackles leaves. Very very moreish!

Source of recipe : Biscuit & Slice Bible by Virginia Heywood (2007).

White chocolate & macadamia blondies

I spotted this blondie recipe on the Exclusively Food blog, and had to make some for my brother's birthday as he is a big white chocolate fan. The recipe is here.

Now unfortunately I wasn't able to take these to my brother's for his birthday last night. I'd left it late to start making them, and in my haste I burnt 2 of my fingers on a hotplate which I had turned on to melt the butter and chocolate. So having one hand vitually out of commission with pain, I enlisted the help of my hubby for the small amount of chopping necessary, and I took far longer than I normally would have to get the mixture ready to bake. By then, we were running late, so as soon as the blondies were cooked, we left them to cool and left them behind and rushed to my brother's place for dinner.

When we got home they were cool, so I removed them from the tin and cut them. They tasted good last night, but they taste even better this morning! They are beautifully moist, and the mild creaminess of the macadamias goes perfectly and doesn't take over the flavour of the white choc. I probably prefer the peanut butter and white chocolate blondies I made recently, but for serious white chocolate afficionados or non-pb lovers, these are it!

I didn't attempt to reduce the fat of these at all - I used normal butter and Cadbury Dream chocolate. I cut 24 pieces as the recipe suggests, and this makes for quite small pieces, but they are very rich, so this seems a good size to me. They work out at 4.5 points each (WW).

I should be seeing my brother tomorrow - hopefully there'll be some left to give him!

Bakewell bars

I have a confession: I absolutely adore the bright red jam you get in baked goods such as jam donuts. I have always wanted to be able to buy it to use in cooking, or indeed just to slather on toast. Nothing similar seems to be readily available in supermarkets, but I recently discovered it is possible to buy it online at Simply No Knead, so I purchased several small containers which arrived earlier this week. This mysterious jam turns out to be apple and raspberry jam, with more apple than raspberry.

Today I decided to put the jam to use by making bakewell bars. Bakewell tart has a layer of jam over the base of the pastry case, topped with a layer of frangipane (almond sponge); these bars are the same but are cooked as a slice instead. The recipe is from Rachel Allen's book 'Bake'. It is slightly different from other recipes I have seen as the frangipane layer contains an equal quantity of semolina as it does almond meal. It also has almond essence so you still get a nice almondy flavour. Having Dutch heritage and consequently an adoration of marzipan, nothing can ever be too almondy for my taste, so the addition of almond essence is a welcome one to make up for having less ground almonds. The semolina obviously changes the texture of the top layer - it is more crumbly and less fine, a more cake-like texture, I suppose. I will have to try it with all almond meal next time to better compare.


The pastry layer covered with jam. The instructions were to roll the pastry out, but I just pressed the dough straight into the tin to cover the base with my fingers and smoothed it out a bit with the back of a spoon.


The almond sponge layer

Peanut butter and white chocolate blondies

This is the first recipe I have made from Rachel Allen's 'Bake'. For fans of peanut butter obviously, which I most certainly am.

This recipe is fantastic - quick and easy to make, and utterly rewarding to eat :p. I made a slightly healthier version, though still naughty. I used Devondale Light butter (just because I hadn't softened any proper butter) and light peanut butter as that was what I had to hand. I did wonder if these alterations would change the brownies much in terms of texture. Normal peanut butter is softer than the reduced fat version, so I thought it mightn't beat as well with the butter, but then the light butter is much softer than normal butter, so it seemed to work out fine. The resulting brownies were moist and moreish, so it didn't seem to matter too much that I reduced the overall fat content slightly.

The recipe...

• 125g plain flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 100g butter
• 150g crunchy peanut butter
• 175g soft light brown sugar
  
• 1 egg, beaten
  
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 75g white chocolate, chopped

Butter and line a 20 x 20cm square cake tin.
Preheat the oven to 170º C.
Sift the flour and baking powder and set aside.
Cream together the butter and peanut butter until very soft. Add the brown sugar, egg and vanilla. Beat until combined. Add the flour / baking powder and chocolate and mix to form a dough.
Spread the dough into the prepared pan.
Bake for 25-30 minutes or until golden brown and almost firm in the centre.
Allow to cool in the tin, then remove and cut into squares.


Years ago from my Family Circle slices cookbook I learnt the trick of extending the baking paper up two opposite sides of the tin to make it easier to remove the slice. I didn't leave much paper extended here, but it was still enough to make it very easy to remove the cooked blondie.


Even though it says to cool in the tin, I didn't wait until it was completely cooled before removing it using my baking paper handles to cool on the rack. I was feeling impatient to get stuck in as it smelt so good!


Sliced while still just slightly warm - yuuuum!

While I was baking the blondies a courier arrived with another parcel for me - gorgeous snowflake cookie cutters, and 2 stunning Nordic Ware bundt tins - the original bundt tin and the star tin. This joins my Nordic Ware cathedral bundt pan and pancake pan. I have my eye on several others, but how many bundt tins can a girl justify having?!