Hedgehog - nostalgia in slice format.

So processed it hurts.

Hedgehog falls into the same category as apple cakes and vanilla slices for me; they bring about a wonderful, dreamy nostalgia for the simple and over processed foods of my youth. Sigh. Yes, that's them to the right there: mass produced and not nearly as nutritious or nice as the home made one's. How I loved them.

Even now if I discover one of those old fashioned bakeries with their white trays of piped meringues and rows of sausage rolls, cream buns and jam fancies, I cannot help but look for the custard slice or apple cake. Those shops are almost gone now, replaced with wooden floorboarded, caffe latte making establishments. Where gluten free options and slices and small cakes are piled in a haphazard, jaunty manner and the people behind the counter are 48% cooler than you'll ever be. Don't get me wrong, I like those places and I eat there - but they are devoid of nostalgia for me. And Nostalgia is powerful, about 63% more powerful then kryptonite.

I'm pretty sure the figures in my blog today are not supported with real data.

The snow capped apple cake, oft have I ascended your treacherous pastry slopes.

*The following paragraph contains major spoilers for the novel Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier. It's a food blog and I know that sounds ridiculous, but it's true. If you haven't read Rebecca, and you should because it's brilliant,  then skip the next paragraph.

Sometimes I cook for nostalgic reasons, because I remember a cake fondly, or because a particular slice reminds me of my time in the pen, or because it will bring back Mandalay and all her beauty. Oh Mandalay - we can never return after that bitch Rebecca ruined it for us all. What a piece of work she was! I will never, ever forget that time when we all standing around, talking about The Sixth Sense and I hadn't seen it yet and she had (of course) and then she was like "Bruce Willis is a ghost of course". Thanks, Rebecca. I'm glad that Maxim shot her and then sunk her little boat. 

Gabe and I made hedgehog today - I don't know if it has any other name, but that's what I've always called it - and why on earth is that, do you wonder? It is a chocolate slice, it is not prickly or full or fleas in the slightest.

What you lookin' at Willis?

That's a hedgehog, in case you have never encountered one. They live in the UK and NZ and sometimes they burn to death in senseless bonfires. This is because hedgehogs like piles of leaves to hibernate in, so they crawl in - go to sleep and then before you know it - Guy Fawkes. Which is sad. If you are in the UK or NZ please poke gently around in your piles of leaves before you burn them. 

It's possible that it's called Hedgehog because they are so cute you just want to EAT THEM UP! Nom Nom. They are very cute and there are lots of pics of them on the Google - when they are babies they almost too painfully adorable to look at.

Hedgehog Slice
One 200g to 250g packet of plain biscuits broken up into bits.
1/2 cup dessicated coconut
1/4 cup cocoa powder
1/2 cup chopped pecans (not for me, thanks)
 1/2 cup of Castor sugar
100 grams of chopped chocolate
100 grams of butter
1 tbsp golden syrup
1 egg lightly, ever so lightly, beaten

Topping
200g of dark chocolate
50g butter.

Prepare a lamington or slice tray 18 x 28cm. I suggest you say something like "You know how we talked about me doing some baking? And how the day might come when I would press a mixture into you, quite forcefully, with my fingers?  That day is now". Then give it a moment to just adjust to that new reality. And then butter it. Now, in retrospect, I wish that I had lined with with baking paper and forgot the whole stupid talk.

There is nothing low fat about this recipe. Nothing.

Smash 'em bickies. SMASH 'EM!

We used to be whole biscuits, but that was before the "troubles"

I broke the biscuits up with my hands and Gabe weighed in too of course, it was quite a good time really - apart from the way that he would smash a few and then elaborately dust his hands over my nice, clean stove top.

Me: Gabe, don't do that darling.
Gabe looks at me puzzled whilst continueing to dust his hands. 
Me: Baby! Please don't dust your mitts over the cooker!
Gabe does one last brush-brush with his hands and looks at me as if I wasn't talking to him at all and I was some mad lady. 
Gabe: When can I put the decorations on?

The decorations are the reason he wants to make the slice.

You cannot be in our club.

The decorations are pretty cool. I have to say. And they are the sweetener on the "cooking deal". If any of you were under the illusion that my son is some junior Masterchef in the making and that he is a kitchen prodigy let me lay those notions to rest. Gabe cooks because he likes to eat sweet things. Like me. He joins in because he gets to lick the bowl. Occasionally there are decorating duties and he manfully takes these on. There is absolutely no indication that he will be plating tempura battered king whiting fillets and a wild sorrel salad anytime soon.

Take your smashed bickies and then add the cocoa, sugar and coconut to that and mix it about. No pecans for me, I waver on the subject of nuts - I like to choose when I eat them - I don't like them foisted on me whenever I want a piece of chocolate slice.

Dry, like my humour.

Melt the chocolate and the butter together with the golden syrup in a saucepan - but not a saucypan - you don't need that kind of cheek whilst your cooking. Once it's all combined it will look silky and brooding. If you are a young and impressionable lass then you will likely want to go out on a date with it - if you are my age it will make you feel tired.

mmm. Yes, like this.

Wait till it cools down and then add the egg - stir it about till mixed and then add it to the dry ingredients. It will all coalesce into a big gooey ball. Press the mix into your prepared tin and then pop it into the fridge to cool down, set and get used to it's new format.

In the meanwhilst - do that thing with the saucepan of hot water and the bowl over it and melt the chocolate with the butter. If you do it with an almost five year old hanging off your left arm, then congratulations, we had exactly the same experience.

Pour the chocolate topping over the slice and smear about.

Semi swirled.

Fully swirled

Apply the almost five year old to decorating duty. Supervise heavily. Let him scatter cachous, sprinkles and hundreds and thousands with gay abandon. But not too gay.

A constellation of colour and movement

Refrigerate and then repent at leisure the decision not to line the tin with baking paper. I did get the slice out, but it wasn't without a fight and its fair to say that the tin came off worse for the wear. Damn that Rebecca and her scheming ways.

Don't let the apples fool ya! We're the main event!

It's delicious. Of course. 300 grams of chocolate, folks.