Caramel Slice

Hello there lovelies,

Guess what? Today I took a challenge and really challenged myself. (I think there was too many ‘challenge’s in that sentence…)

Today, I made caramel slice.

Now, this may not seem like a big deal to most, but I swear this was a huge deal to me. Back when I in the depths of my anorexia, I loved to cook. I used to spend hours and hours and hours and hours perusing recipes. I used to calculate fat, sugar, carb and fibre content and work out how I could make these recipes ‘healthier’. I used to cut out butter (putting in an olive oil spread – no saturated fat), cut the sugar by at least half, always use wholemeal flour (much healthier of course) and generally take perfectly good and normal recipes and turn them into crazy ‘healthified’ recipes. Note, when I use the word ‘healthy’ or any version of it, please know that I actually mean ‘really stupidly disordered things that have literally nothing in them, don’t taste all that great but gave me a perverse sense of pleasure to be able to cut the calorie count of a recipe by that much so that really it wasn’t even worth eating at all because there was nothing in it!’. As you can see, ‘healthy’ is much easier to use.

I have, thankfully, moved on and recognised that recipes are generally recipes because they both work well and taste good and that really, butter is not going to kill you.

However, although I know this and can now eat cakes, biscuits, slices and other sweet yummy things without guilt or panic attacks, I still have trouble making them. While I know that to make a cake, you need about 100g or more of butter and you a going to need around a cup of sugar, it’s really hard for me to just relax and bake the stuff without going into super panic mode and frantically wondering how I can cut calories and fat and sugar and oh my god all this bad stuff! But, I’ve been craving caramel slice recently and so I thought ‘bugger it. If I want it – I’m going to make it myself. I can handle this. It’s not that big of a deal’.

Also, I know this might seem weird to many – being scared of what goes in something that you make and yet being totally fine about eating it, even though you know what goes in it – but I can’t explain it any better than that it’s like the physical sight of the butter and the sugar and all the other stuff that makes it scary.

But, I forged ahead and reached with shaking fingers towards the condensed milk and the chocolate and all that butter and I sucked liquorice to calm my fast beating heart and I blocked out my frantic calorie counting by humming to any and every song I could think of and I did it. It was tough but I did it.

I came out stronger and I came out one step further along this path they call recovery.

I came out with caramel slice as my medal and it tastes good. Really good. I think it might be the best caramel slice I’ve ever had. :)

Also, obviously my food photography needs work but I ask you to forgive me and instead just concentrate on the deliciousness that is just oozing out of these pictures. :)

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Caramel Slice (I used the recipe from here)

Makes 12 slices

Prep Time: ~35mins

Cook Time: 24mins

Total Time: ~3hrs 57mins

Ingredients

Base

1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar

2/3 cup desiccated coconut

2/3 cup self-raising flour

85g butter, melted

Filling

30g butter

2 tbl condensed milk

1 can (395g) condensed milk

Topping

150g chocolate (note – I used dark chocolate)

Method

1. Preheat oven to 180^oC
2. Grease a 20cm square cake pan and line the base and sides of the pan with baking paper
3. Stir brown sugar, coconut, and flour together in a large bowl until well combined. Add butter and mix until well combined
4. Firmly press mixture into prepared pan using the back of a spoon
5. Bake for 10-12 minutes or until lightly browned and slightly risen (Note – mine only needed 8mins)
6. Set base aside to cool for about 10-20 minutes (while making caramel). Leave oven on
7. Place butter and golden syrup in a medium, heavy-based saucepan over medium heat, stirring occasionally
8. When butter has melted, add condensed milk. Stir constantly over medium heat for about 9-12 minutes, until caramel thickens
9. Gently spread caramel evenly over base. Return to oven for a further 10-12 minutes (a 1/2cm border of lightly browned caramel should form around the edges of the slice)
10. Allow slice to cool to room temperature
11. Melt the chocolate in a small saucepan over very low heat, stirring frequently. Alternatively, melt the chocolate in a double boiler or in a microwave-safe bowl in the microwave (I did mine in the microwave)
12. Spread melted chocolate over caramel
13. Refrigerate slice until chocolate is just set, about 20-30 minutes
14. Remove slice from pan and cut into pieces
15. Store in the fridge or in the cupboard if the weather isn’t too warm