United Cakedom: Vanilla Slice

While browsing in my local Oxfam book store I came across this little book called Cakes and Slices published by Murdoch Books. It's where I found the recipe for these Vanilla Slices. This recipe was 1-of-3 that featured passion fruit. Ever since I had that cheesecake at Giraffe I have wanted to use passion fruit in my baking and this is the second time I have! It's so good.

This didn't work out as I wanted, it was doomed from the start. First off I wasn't really in the mood to bake, but I bought all the ingredients and didn't want anything to go off. Then I realised I bought the wrong amount of whipping cream. I thought I had read 35mls, but it was 35floz! oops. So, I substituted with double cream and milk. It worked but it took way longer then the 2 minutes it says it should. I ended up burning it. The burnt taste wasn't completely inedible, just not what I wanted. I also blame my NOT heavy bottom sauce pan. Too bad I already used all my Lakelands gift vouchers!

Then I used ready-made puff-pastry as I don't have a lot of experience in pastry making and I wanted to save time. I don't think I baked it long enough. It was baked, but could have been more browned.

I went ahead with the icing, but it had a strong taste of icing sugar, the passion fruit wasn't enough to over power it. So, it was only okay. I might have to play with that icing a bit as I really like the idea of a passion fruit icing!

These slices were a bit better the following day after cooling in the fridge over night. The burnt taste wasn't as noticeable and it was very creamy and made me decide to try these again at a later date!

To compensate for the not so successful vanilla slice I used a tried and trusted back up! Betty Crocker Fudge Brownies! I wondered why I sometimes preferred these brownies to other homemade versions I have made/tried. It's the oil. It has to be. All the other recipes use butter. This one calls for 2 tbsps of vegetable oil. Either way they were good.

chilled and ready to eat

500g ready-made puff pastry

230g caster sugar

90g corn flour

60g custard powder

1 litre pouring cream

60g unsalted butter

2 tsp vanilla extract

3 egg yolks

Icing: 185g icing sugar, 60g passion fruit pulp, 15g unsalted butter

Preheat oven 210C. Lightly grease 2 baking sheets with oil. Line the base and sides of a shallow 23cm square cake tin with foil, leaving the foil to hang over the sides.

Divide the pastry in half, roll each piece to a 25cm square 3mm thick. Place on baking sheets and prick all over with a fork and bake for 8 minutes or until golden. Trim each pastry sheet to 23cm square. Put one sheet topside down in the cake tin.

Combine sugar, corn flour, and custard powder in a saucepan. Add the cream, stirring constantly over a medium heat for 2 minutes, or until it boils and thickens. Add the butter and vanilla and stir until smooth. Remove from heat and whisk in the egg yolks. Spread custard over the pastry in the tin. Then cover with the other pastry sheet, top side down. Cool.

To make the icing combine all ingredients and stir until smooth. Lift the slice out of the tin. Ice the top and leave to set before cutting with a serrated knife.