What a weekend it has been! Lots of cooking and photos and running around generally. I've had a few flops and a few successes. It's all a learning experience and this afternoon it's perfect weather to stay inside and tell you all about it.
I started the weekend with a chocolate caramel slice from the Donna Hay Simple Essentials: Chocolate cook book (p32). It's something I've wanted to try making for years. I remember school fetes and morning teas when someone's mum made caramel slice. I was fascinated every time. I thought it was this magical, mystical creation that took much more skill than I had. Well it turns out that it's not actually that hard, even when converting the base to wheat free. (There are some things I'm not prepared to forgo taste testing of!)
The recipe worked well although I'll use more chocolate on top next time. The one thing I found was that the base can dry out quite quickly and become a bit hard. I think this is because the base is baked twice - once with and once without the caramel filling. Or perhaps it's just because I don't have a feel for this recipe yet? Whatever the case may be, it hasn't deterred Tim and I've had to hide a large portion of it. I want him around for a long while yet and I fear that if he gets his hands on this and acts with his usual abandon, it will go in a flash and may cause a little artery hardening. Yes, there's a fair bit of butter in this one.
Ingredients
base:
1 cup plain flour (I used spelt flour)
1/2 cup desiccated coconut
1/2 cup brown sugar
125g butter, melted
caramel filling:
1/3 cup golden syrup
125g butter, melted
2 x 400g cans sweetened condensed milk
topping:
200g dark chocolate
3 tsp olive oil
Preheat oven to 180ºC. Place the flour, coconut, sugar and butter in a bowl and mix well. Press the mixture into a 20cm x 30c slice tin lined with non-stick baking paper and bake for 15-20 minutes until brown.
To make the caramel filling, place the golden syrup, butter and condensed milk in a saucepan over low heat and stir for 7 minutes or until the caramel has thickened slightly. Pour over the cooked base and bake for 20 minutes or until the caramel is golden.
Refrigerate until cold, then melt the chocolate and oil and pour over the top.
2 comments:
i actually quickly skimmed this post this morning and have not been able to get caramel slice out of my head. Thanks for that. Grrrr.
Hello!
This was de-lic-ious.
It's sort of thing that you think you can never have enough of, but after a couple of mouthfuls, I'm satisfied (for a while).
Thanks for sharing,
BA
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