New Zealand cafes and bakeries are The Best. (Ever.) (In the whole world.)
Somehow I always forget this. And I forget about lolly cake*, which is the one reason why I would never be able to go on a permanent no-sugar diet in New Zealand.
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* If you don't click over to that site, you will be culturally poorer and never really understand what entertaining reading a well-written recipe can be.
Monday, May 21, 2007
One good thing
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When we first moved to Australia when I was little my Aunt (who used to ice wedding cakes) upon finding out on a visit that we couldn't get the right kinds of sweets to go in lolly cakes* decided that whenever anyone had a birthday she'd bake on and send it over.
She still does, nearly 15 years later. Every birthday I recieve a lovely parcel with a lolly cake and a few other choice delicacies that one can't obtain in Australia.
I love my Aunt - lolly cakes are the best!
*You can now though, I saw them in the shops a few months ago! (I don't think I'll tell my Aunt)
If any dense americans are reading this, wikipedia explains fruit puffs http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lolly_Cake - although I still don't understand malt biscuits - and how a cake could be made from combining them with sweetened condensed milk and butter. Maybe I ought jaunt over to NZ and try it? Want a visitor, Styley?
Me too, about the fruit puffs and malt biscuits!
ahh! Now I want lolly cake. But I'm in Canada, and all the Americans above me say the ingredients can't be found up here.
I think I'll have to explore the stores over here for the next few days and report back if I can find substitutes...
We make something kind of similar to this, even though I can never remember what it's called (usually something like "rocky road bars"), with chocolate chips, peanut butter, and fruit-flavored mini marshmallows.
However, I realize that it's probably blasphemous of me to even suggest that it's *similar* to Lolly Cake!
Fruit puffs are a bit like marshmallows but with a denser texture and strong fake-fruit flavours. But you could substitute with marshmallows if you really had to. Malt biscuits are biscuits (i.e. "cookies" to you Americans, that taste like malt). I have seen it suggested that you could substitute with something called graham crackers in the US, but I think you'd probably want to add a little treacle or something for the malty taste.
And when they say "cake"... It's more the texture of fudge or something.
Oh, I wondered if it might not be somewhat like a graham cracker crust with stuff in it - or like a magic bar that has been all mixed up (magic bars are graham crackers, sweetened condensed milk, butter, coconut, and chocolate chips).
The recipie is very charming!
I make something very similar with digestive biscuits (graham crackers), mini marshmallows, glace cherries, condensed milk and coconut. Sometimes walnuts.
I just call it stuff.
Dr R said this morning, on seing the picture "that's not lollycake, that's stuff."
That is the most charming recipe I ever read.
Cool recipe! Loved the pictures, which are so cute. Hug it? Eat it? Hug it? Eat it?
But styley, you are so funny. Add treacle, ha! We don't have treacle either. I only know what the word means because of encountering its adjectival form, which is usually clear from context, while reading British fiction. And I have no idea what it looks like.
Ditto fruit puffs (thx for the explanation), though after some puzzling I did figure out the biscuit thing. The insuperable obstacle to me might be the fact that the recipe is in grams (c'mon, grams isn't a measure of volume; it's a measure of weight. are you telling me that you cook with a scale?) and the lack of a microwave... but it looks really tasty, and I'm totally going to try it anyway despite all the difficulties. Heck, I might even try it here in China, though the results will probably be absurd...
Um, molasses? I think that's a bit like treacle (like you, from context, not because I have ever encountered the stuff).
And you are right about the absurdity of measurements in weight rather than volume, although I had never thought about it before. People of my mother's generation all own kitchen scales and do measure out ingredients. People of my generation either know some useful conversions off by heart (1 C flour = 125 g, 1 C sugar = 190 g) etc, or we consult the helpful table in the front of the cookbook that every NZer owns (the Edmonds).
(And butter comes in packets that are marked with lines for each 50 g chunk.)
Styley
Not fair I have spent the past 24 hours craving lolly cake and trying to resist the siren call of the local bakery! I can hear it now calling me.
Soo.. update.
I cannot find the right lollies to make this, so I haven't yet. I refuse to make lollie cake without the correct lollies. That's the whole point!
Actually, I'm a little puzzled... I can't even seem to find marshmallows at my supermarket. They do have them in Canada right?
In other news, I think Ovaltine cookies may work for malt biscuits.
Talk to me! (You know you want to!)