Gooey Salted Caramel Slice

I first tried salted caramel in the form of fudge at a popular London market last year. Best. Decision. Ever. It was absolutely mind-blowingly delicious! I’m pretty sure I ate my fair share of fudge that day. I definitely remember the sore tummy afterwards.

Recently I found this slice recipe in the Bite section of The Herald newspaper a couple of weeks back and I thought, why not! It was really just too good not to share with you lovely folk!

After I got this fix, I was on the hunt for more salted caramel and came across a recipe for  ice cream so watch this space!

Enjoy. Have a great weekend everybody!

Gooey Salted Caramel Slice

• 250 grams butter, softened
• 100 grams sugar
• 100 grams cornflour
• 50 grams icing sugar
• 350 grams flour
• 50 grams walnuts, chopped

Caramel

• 1 can sweetened condensed milk
• 2 tablespoons golden syrup
• 150 grams butter
• 1 1/4 teaspoons salt

Heat oven to 170 degrees and line a 20 x 30 slice tin with non-stick baking paper.
Cream butter and sugar, add cornflour, icing sugar and flour. Mix together until it forms a ball. Divide the mixture in half, use one half to press it into the tin and place the other half in the fridge.

Bake for 20 minutes until just starting to colour. Remove from the oven and cool.

Make the caramel by melting the butter, golden syrup and condensed milk in a pot until well blended. Make sure you keep stirring to avoid burning. Take off the element and cool – I placed the pot in the fridge for about 20 minutes to speed up the process.

Spread the caramel evenly over the cooled base. Sprinkle over the walnuts. Dice up the remaining dough and sprinkle evenly over the top. Return to the oven and bake for a further 20 minutes.

When cool, slice into squares and store in a biscuit tin. If it lasts that long. Let’s be honest.

Caramel Oat Cake

I often make this cake (err, slice?) and I have wanted to add it to the blog for a good while. Do you know what the funny thing is? I always forget to take a picture before it disappears fairly quickly. Damn.

Well this time I did, so here it is in all it’s glory. This recipe comes from Jo Seagar’s cookbook called The Cook School Recipes. When I first purchased this book, I had every intention of regularly choosing a new recipe and trying it out. But like all my other cookbooks…it took a place on the shelf and I resorted to my laptop and the power of google! Does anyone else do that? I must make more of an effort to make things from an actual recipe book!

The combination of the caramel, rolled oats and wholemeal flour is just so delicious and tastes remarkably healthy! Even though, let’s face it, it’s totally NOT. But hey! We’re all allowed to indulge once in a while! Happy Thursday. Yay, nearly the weekend! Enjoy.

Caramel Oat Cake

• 1 1/2 cups wholemeal flour
• 3/4 cup white flour
• 2 tsps baking powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 3/4 cup desiccated coconut
• 3/4 cup rolled oats
• 1 1/2 cups brown sugar
• 250 grams butter
• 2 eggs
• Vanilla

For the caramel:

• 400ml sweetened condensed milk
• 2 tbsps golden syrup
• 150 grams butter

Make the caramel by combining the butter, condensed milk, golden syrup in a small pot over a medium heat. Mix until well combined and make sure the caramel has thickened slightly and turned a golden brown. I put the pot straight into the fridge so it thickened a bit more. It seemed to hold itself together more in the oven rather than oozing into the base.

Mix all the dry ingredients together in a bowl. In a smaller bowl mix melted butter, eggs and vanilla. Stir into dry ingredients. Press 3/4 of the mixture into a slice pan and pour the caramel on top. Crumble the remaining mixture over the top. Bake at 180 degrees for about 40-45 minutes or until golden.

When the slice has cooled, drizzle with chocolate!

I’ve decided to enter this delicious recipe into Sweet New Zealand for March 2014! Check out all the fantastic recipes over at Bake Club at the end of the month!

Original Caramel Slice

Nothing beats a good caramel slice! Or so I’m told… As I’ve mentioned in a previous post, there are many establishments in Wellington that really excel in this area. Astoria, Sweet’s Mother’s Kitchen…to name a few.

I’ve blogged a few times before with a couple of variations to the caramel slice:

Caramel Crunchy Slice & Baked Caramel and Chocolate Slice.

Both delicious in their own right but by no means, the original caramel slice. A short but oh so very sweet post to mark the end of January! Enjoy.

Caramel Slice

• 1/2 cup plain flour
• 1/2 cup self raising flour
• 1 cup desiccated coconut
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 100g butter

For the filling:

• 30g butter
• 2 Tbsp golden syrup
• 400g can sweetened condensed milk

For the icing:

• 2 cups icing sugar
• 3 Tbsp cocoa
• 30g butter

Preheat oven to 180°C. Put aluminium foil in a shallow dish. To make base: Sift flours into a bowl, add coconut. Combine brown sugar and butterin a pan until sugar has dissolved. Add mixture to the flours and stir. Press into tin with back of spoon, bake for 10 mins or until brown.

Combine butter, golden syrup and condensed milk in a saucepan. Stir for 10 mins until mixture boils and browns (watch it doesn’t burn on bottom). Pour over base and bake for 20 minutes. Although the original recipe didn’t say so, once the caramel is out of the oven place it in the fridge for 10-20 minutes. This will make the caramel solidify a little and makes icing it a little easier.

For the icing, combine the icing sugar, cocoa and melted butter in a bowl, stir until well combined. Spread over caramel filling.This slice is ridiculously more-ish so freeze it and take one piece out at a time or take it sttttrrrrraight outta the house! So good!

Crunchy Caramel Cookies

Well, I’m lost for words. I can’t really think what to write about this recipe for Caramel Oat Biscuits. They simply could not be easier to make let alone pretty super duper healthy. A good idea of something to make after that pre-Christmas binge that goes on with junk food and other sweet treats!

The recipe makes about 50 small biscuits or about 20-ish regular sized ones. Something I like about them is that they’re not overly sweet! Made from a combination of plain and wholemeal flour…one small biscuit certainly fills that hunger gap. They follow a slightly different process (quite American I believe!) which actually makes it really easy to make in smaller batches, if needed. Definitely recommend!

These biscuits can be stored in an airtight container for up to 2 weeks. Try adding a little ground cinnamon to the biscuit dough if you like a bit of spice. I was thinking after these had been cooked, adding a few currants, raisins or sultanas…any dried fruit for that matter, would be a really nice addition! Enjoy.

Crunchy Caramel Cookies

• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 teaspoon vanilla essence
• 1 cup plain flour
• 1 cup wholemeal flour
• 1/2 a teaspoon baking soda
• 76 grams of butter

Preheat oven to 200°C. Set aside 2 non-stick baking trays. In a large bowl, cream together butter, sugar, egg and vanilla using an electric mixer. Add remaining ingredients and beat thoroughly. You may need to add 1-2 tbs iced water if mixture is too dry.

Scrape dough out of bowl and onto a large piece of plastic. Roll dough into a log, approximately 4cm wide. Completely wrap dough in plastic and refrigerate until firm, for at least 60 minutes, or overnight.

Cut dough into 3mm thin slices and arrange on baking trays well apart. Bake for approximately 10 minutes, or until lightly browned around edges and biscuits are firm to the touch.

Allow cookies to cool on trays then remove using a spatula to a cake rack to cool completely.

Christmas Fudge

I’ve never been that successful at making fudge. Not proper fudge anyway. I can bustle up a biscuit-based uncooked fudge slice any day but quite frankly, I lack the patience to stir and stir and stir and stirrrr the darn pot to avoid the sugary goodness getting burnt on the bottom….zzZZZ. I usually avoid making fudge/toffee. Disaster.

Recently I came across a fudge recipe in Jo Seagar’s The Cook School Recipes called Fabulous Fudge. I have had the page post-it noted for a while now and thought I would try it and see just how fabulous this fudge was. If you like a smooth and creamy fudge that is not all sugary and hard, and easy to cut into portions without crumbling, then this is the one!

Christmas Fudge

• 2 x 400 gram cans of sweetened condensed milk
• 2 cups of brown sugar, firmly packed
• 250 grams of butter
• 100 ml liquid glucose syrup
• 3 tablespoons golden syrup
• 400 grams milk chocolate, chopped
• 1 teaspoon of vanilla

Spray and line with non stick baking paper, a 20 x 30 cm, quite deep ( at least 4 cm ) tin, or two smaller tins.

Place all ingredients, except the chocolate and vanilla, in a large heavy based saucepan and stir over medium heat until the butter melts and the sugar dissolves. Bring to the boil and boil gently until it becomes very thick and changes colour to a dark caramel brown paper shade – about 6 minutes, to the soft ball stage. Remove from heat and stand until the bubbles subside. Stir in the chocolate and vanilla until melted and smooth.

Pour into the prepared tin and smooth the surface. Cool to room temperature ( about 3 hours ) then refrigerate until firm. Cut into squares. Store in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 6 weeks – if you’re lucky!!!!!

This is an entry into Sweet New Zealand for December. This time it is hosted by Bron Marshall. Check out all the delicious entries!

Caramel Crunchy Slice

This square is delicious and very quick and easy to make. Like my other post, this is not your typical caramel slice. It is uncooked (so easy!) and does not use biscuits in the base, but a combination of cornflakes and coconut. Mmmm, salivating already.

I recently worked out that this recipe came from one of those collaborative community cookbooks where well-known people nominate their favourite recipe. This one came from the mayor of Palmerston North, at the time it was published.

Caramel Crunchy Square

For the base:

• 250 grams of Kremelta
• 3 tablespoons of cocoa
• 1 cup of coconut
• 3 cups of cornflakes
• 1 cup of icing sugar
• Vanilla

For the caramel:

• ½ a cup of brown sugar
• ½ a can of condensed milk
• 2 tablespoons of butter
• 2 tablespoons of golden syrup

Mix all the dry ingredients together and mix well, add the melted Kremelta. Mix until well combined. Grease and line a square baking tin and press half the mixture into the bottom. Press down with a glass until very compact. Put the tin into the fridge to set.

Meanwhile melt together all ingredients to make the caramel. Cook and stir gently for 4-5 minutes. Pour over the set mixture and then cover with other half of the base mixture. Chill slice and cut into squares when set.