Friday, September 18, 2009

Old Fashioned Favourite


A sequel to one of my favourite books, Ladies, A Plate, has just been released. It’s called (quite cutely) A Second Helping. It’s full of more old fashioned favourite recipes, the kind I find in my Nana’s recipe books. I am lucky enough to have two of my Nana’s recipe books. They are the two cook books I treasure most from my vast collection. They are what I would call “community” cook books- recipes collated by women in a local community raising money for a particular cause. I love Nana’s handwritten notes in the margin. Treasures such as “Good!”, “Not as good as my recipe”, “Good for a party” and other such notes.

Having received “A Second Helping” it inspired me to look through Nana’s books again. I came across a recipe called chocolate cream slice. My blogging friend Morven said her mother used to make this and it was called keamish Square. It is a real old fashioned slice, but quite delicious. A chocolate base, layer of raspberry jam, layer of a kind of mock cream which is set with gelatine and then chocolate icing. My husband loved it. I really liked it too but it is quite sweet so you can really only eat a small bit at a time.

I’ve tagged a whole heap of other old fashioned recipes that I am going to try and report on in the coming months.

Chocolate Cream (or Kneamish) Square

120g butter
120g sugar
1 egg
180g flour
1 tbsp cocoa
1 tsp baking powder
Raspberry jam

• Cream butter and sugar; beat in egg
• Stir in dry ingredients.
• Press into lined 18 x 23cm tin and bake at 175c for 25 minutes
• When cold top with a layer of raspberry jam and then the following topping and then once that has set, ice with chocolate icing

120g butter
60g sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla
1/8 tsp cream of tartar
1 tsp gelatine dissolved in 3 tbsp cold water

• Cream butter and sugar
• Beat in remaining in ingredients until thick, pale and creamy

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Tammy,I think the correct spelling is Neemish,as in the individual cakes.Looks delish.

Karine said...

This looks delicious and perfect for my sweet tooth! Thanks for sharing :)

Cakelaw said...

This looks yummy Tammy. I saw A Second Helping in Cuisine, and I have been trying to be good and NOT order it - well, just yet :). But this makes it even harder not to.

Anonymous said...

lizab from foodlovers here Tammy - that slice looks absolutely gorgeous!!!! I'm definitely going to try that one tomorrow. My grandmother was a terrific baker too ... weren't we lucky :)

Peabody said...

I can see why it's a favorite.