caramel slice

I think I must've chosen the hottest day to make these but I was eager to bring these along to our NYE bash. The recipe wasn't hard and in normal weather conditions (i.e. under 30 degrees), the recipe would probably work but in my case, I was dealing with 30 degree plus heat and a special piece of equipment was required to get this one happening in my alloted time that day I'd allowed for baking. And what would that be? Well, it was my trusty old fan and I couldn't have done without it and so I've altered this recipe by adding a fan to the list of ingredients. Don't laugh at me!

Ingredients: Base - 125g plain flour, 1 tsp baking powder, 90g dessicated coconut, 115g caster sugar, 125g melted unsalted butter. Filling - 100g unsalted butter, 100g brown sugar, 400ml tin condensed milk, 2 tbsp golden syrup, 1 tsp vanilla extract. Topping - 150g dark chocolate. Most importantly, grab yourself a fan to help you get through the following instructions.

Preheat oven to 180 degrees and lightly grease and line an 18x28cm baking tin. Sift the flour and baking powder into a large bowl, add the coconut, sugar and butter and stir together.

Press firmly into the base of the tin and bake for 12 minutes, or until lightly golden.

To make the filling, put the butter, brown sugar, condensed milk, golden syrup and vanilla in a saucepan over low heat.

Cook, stirring, until the sugar has dissolved (my own tip - make sure you don't have any sugar crystals sitting on the side of the pan/pot as it will burn very quickly). Bring to the boil, then reduce the heat to low and cook, stirring for 5 minutes (until light golden).

Pour evenly over the cooked base, then return to the oven and bake for 10 minutes.

Set aside to cool completely. Time to turn on the fan and put this one in front of it.

Once the caramel is cool, put the chocolate in a heat proof bowl over a saucepan of gently simmering water, stirring occasionally until the chocolate has melted. Spread the chocolate evenly over the caramel. Place back in front of the fan to get the chocolate to set.

Once the chocolate has set, cut into squares (I managed to get 24 out of this batch).

I ended up putting each slice into a muffin holder (which I think is a great idea when you're handling it - if you have warm hands, you don't need to worry about melting the slice when you're eating it).

The recipe actually suggests sprinkling the slice with some sea salt (e.g. Maldon sea salt). I didn't have any on me at the time but I did end up buying a pack of Maldon sea salt after seeing it on sale at the supermarket; so maybe next time!

These caramel slices were so deliciously rich that most of us that night only managed to eat the one and I would recommend the one slice at a time as they can be a bit tooth-achingly sweet. The whole exercise of making caramel slices actually turned out much easier than I thought; I'm not sure why I always thought they were hard to make. Anyway, I'm busily baking away, more recipes to follow!