Ladies, A Plate

We were lucky enough to have my youngest sister, Hayley, come and stay with us again in the weekend, and so of course I had to make her favourite caramel slice. This time I used a recipe from a fabulous new book I bought last week called “Ladies, A Plate”. The title refers to the New Zealand practice of ladies taking a plate to functions – with something on it of course! This book is delightful. It is well researched and is a collection of traditional NZ baking recipes – most dating back to the early part of last century, which the writer has collected from various community cookbooks published in NZ in the 1940s, 50s and 60s.



New Zealand has a real tradition of home baking and the recipes are many that I know from my childhood that my Nana and great Aunty used to bake – afghans, miracles, treacle scones and the like. I cant wait to try these new versions and there are also a number of cakes, biscuits and slices that I haven’t tried before that I cant wait to test. The book is beautifully put together, with detailed notes on where the recipes have been collected from and their history.



This caramel slice was delicious – thick caramel sandwiched between layers of chocolate shortbread and topped with chocolate. Yum!