I am the eldest of four girls. I am 34, my next sister is 32, then the youngest two are 28 and 27. However, ever since the youngest was born, we have been grouped in pairs as the “big girls” and the “wee girls”. The wee girls live in Napier and came to stay in the weekend. Whenever anyone comes to stay I obviously do some baking to have in the tins and as I have mentioned before, the wee girls love anything caramel.
So, this time I decided to make a chocolate version of tan square. I love tan square. There is something about the simplicity of it and it great to make a slice that you don’t have to ice. Tan square has a shortbread style base, a layer of caramel and then the remainder of the base mixture is crumbled over the top. When I make vanilla tan square, I sprinkle chocolate chips over the top along with the crumbled base. This time I used a whole can of condensed milk plus about ¼ of a leftover can for the caramel filling because let’s face it, the caramel is really what the slice is about! I really think this is one of the nicest caramel slices I have made!
I’m not sure where this recipe originated from – it is one I wrote in my recipe book when I was a wee kid, so I can guess it probably came from one of those fundraising community recipe books, as when I was a child those books and the Edmonds book were just about the only recipe books we had. I still think those fundraising style cook books haven the best baking recipes in them.
I also made some triple chocolate cookies form Hayley to take home with her. I used a new recipe and while they taste nice they don’t come close to making it into the top 10 chocolate chip cookie recipes! The recipe called them fudgey chocolate chunk cookies. And they were quite fudgey, but not chocolatey enough for me and too flat. Mind you, I ate enough tan slice to make sure I didn’t need to eat any cookies!
Chocolate Tan Square
180g butter
90g sugar
1 tsp vanilla
250g flour
50g cocoa
1 tsp baking powder
· Cream butter, sugar and vanilla
· Mix in dry ingredients to form a soft dough and press 2/3 into a lined 23cm square tin
· Put remaining mix in fridge while you make the caramel
400g can condensed milk
2 tbsp golden syrup
50g butter
· Melt all caramel ingredients together over a low heat. Keep stirring for about 5 minutes until caramel is thick and golden
· Pour over the base, then crumble over remaining dough
Bake at 180c for 20-25 minutes
4 comments:
I'm so envious Tammy - wish I had a sister who baked such scrummy things for me. Do your sisters have a love of baking like you do? Dropping your little 'something' into the mail tomorrow on my way to do a friend's garden. She has been in Melbourne for 5wks Radiotherapy post mastectomy and a group of us are going to do her garden for her to welcome her home. Think I will make one of your Banana Loaves to take for us to share while we work. Hugs Raewyn
Any idea what I can use as a substitute for Golden Syrup? Those sound SO GOOD!
Hi Jules
they are so good!! :0) I would substitue maple syrup - but possible of the not real maple syrup variety (!) so that the maple flavour isnt too strong. Alternatively you could add about 3 tbsp of brown sugar
Tammy
I am lucky enough to be one of the 'wee girls' (although not so wee with all of this delicious baking!) Tammy you really out did yourself this weekend - the food and company was absolutley fabulous! I am very spoilt - thank you
Hayley
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