A Tale of Two Slices

For "baking Friday" this week, I made two slices. My reason for this burst of enthusiasm was that one of the slices contained ginger, which is less of a general "crowd pleaser" among my circle of acquaintance than other sweets. I have no idea why this is - I adore ginger, with chocolate coated ginger being one of my favourite treats, and there's nothing like grated fresh ginger to add a pleasant "zing" to a stir fry. Bearing this in mind, I made Ginger Crunch and Raspberry Coconut Slice.

Ginger crunch is a slice with a shortbread like base and a ginger caramel topping. I was first introduced to ginger crunch (without actually knowing what it was) as a ten year old. The mother of one of my friends made it for us, and I liked it so much that I copied down the recipe on the back of a ten pin bowling score card. While I never actually made that recipe, it is still in the bottom drawer of my desk at my mother's house. As my mother lives interstate, I couldn't just pop around to pick up the recipe. However, luckily for me, I had a recipe for ginger crunch at p295 in Cook by Kate McGhie, which I have made once before with pleasing results. However, I found the topping (my favourite part!) a little thin, so I was pleased when Bron Marshall made a delightful looking ginger crunch with a thick topping, the recipe for which can be found here. Accordingly, I used Kate's base and Bron's topping, and was very pleased with the results, which can be seen here:

The ginger is really quite subtle, so even if you think you don't like ginger, but like caramel and shortbread, give it a go! It is delicious.

Raspberry coconut slice was a frequent treat in my house when I was growing up. It comprises a cake-like base topped with raspberry jam (or any other type of jam that takes your fancy!) and a light coconut mixture. This recipe is my mother's own, so there are no copyright issues with my reproducing it here (I'm sure Mum won't mind!). It is as follows:

Base:

125g butter
1/2 cup sugar
1 egg
2 cups self raising flour

Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius, and grease a 20cm x 30cm slice tray. Cream butter and sugar, then beat in the egg. Fold in the sifted self raising flour, and press the resulting dough evenly into the prepared slice tray. Spread base with the jam of your choice (approximately 3/4 cup).

Topping:

2 egg whites
2 tablespoons white sugar
coconut

Mix the egg whites and sugar together, then add enough coconut to stiffen the topping (that is as specific as I can get - that's what my handwritten notes from mum say). Spread the topping over the base, being careful to place it on top of the jam rather than mix it in. Bake for 25-30 minutes or until the topping is golden. The results are as follows:


Both slices seemed to be popular at work, and I still have some just for me and my friends for the weekend because I baked two separate slices. I am even lucky enough to have a friend down from Sydney this weekend with her boyfriend, so I have plenty of opportunities to share the joy. Have a great weekend everyone!