Baked Caramel and Chocolate Slice

Caramel slice would have to be the most popular slice, right? I too enjoy a good old-fashioned slice from time to time. Lemon slice usually but recently my flatmate has introduced (confirmed?) to me the deliciousness of a good caramel slice. I have been told a few cafes around Wellington excel in their creation. One café being Astoria (which I occasionally frequent) and the other being Sweet Mother’s Kitchen, known more for their curly fries!

I hadn’t really thought too much about slice until I was a part of a bake club in August for Wellington on a Plate. The baking challenge for week numero tres was ‘old-fashioned slice’. I thought too long and too hard about what was and wasn’t considered old-fashioned. I ended up making a variation of a lemon slice from Kitchen Wench which was fairly fiddly to make but man, did it look great and the flavour, perfect….

Since then I have found myself eying up slice recipes galore, and am now pretty apt at recognising that old-fashioned slice!  I managed to find a really nice variation to the traditional caramel slice from the Foodlovers site run by New Zealand foodie, Helen Jackson. With a rich crumbly base and delicious gooey caramel that actually holds its shape, this is the perfect caramel slice. I generally enjoy slice in smaller sizes so managed to squeeze a mighty 49 pieces out of this one.

Tell me, what is your favourite old-fashioned slice recipe? Do you have a special baking recipe that has been in the family for years? Enjoy your sugar fix with this one!

Baking Caramel and Chocolate Slice

For the base

• 175 grams of butter
• 1/2 a cup of sugar
• 1 teaspoon of vanilla
• 1 1/2 cups of flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 2 tablespoons of cocoa

For the topping

• 100g of butter
• 1/4 cup of golden syrup
• 1 cup of sweetened condensed milk

Be sure to preheat your oven to 180° before you start. I decided to double the base mixture about half way through when I discovered the mixture didn’t quite spread across my 25 cm slice pan. Beat the butter and sugar until pale and creamy. Add vanilla and combined flour, baking powder and cocoa and mix well. Press 2/3 of the mixture into a slice pan and allow to chill. Melt together the butter and golden syrup, stir through the sweetened condensed milk and set aside to cool. Pour cooled topping over the base and then crumble remaining base over the top. Bake for 25 minutes until caramel is golden. Cool and cut into squares or fingers.

On a side note, the Wellington on a Plate bake club competition was great fun to be part of. Other baking challenges included biscuits, savoury muffins and cake (some of which have been blogged on). The final category for the big bake off was won by a lady called Jinesse with her steamed ginger cupcake with lemon frosting, topped with cute little gingerbread men. I will attempt to make these one day, they sound delicious!

As I was writing this post I stumbled across a post about Sweet New Zealand and have decided to enter this recipe!

This is a monthly blogging event which was created by Alessandra Zecchini and is currently hosted by Couscous & Consciousness. This is a great opportunity to share recipes and discover what other people are making and baking in their kitchens!