Marshmellow Slice

Intro

I was talking to an older friend last week about how hard it is to find a cafe serving nicely sized slices, proper savouries and club sandwiches. It is increasingly hard these days to buy 'polite' servings when eating out. Huges wedges of thick slices and palm-sized shortbread are simply overwhelming for many people and older people in particular. She has a point. This is the baking of my childhood; slices were cooked in swiss-roll tins and cut into 24 neat squares, savouries were 2 inches across and comprised a thin layer of savoury mince encased in flaky puff pastry and pikelets, as served by Nana Wilson, were tiny pillows of lovliness.

This slice is one of my Mums and I don't remember it being made terribly often. I remember it usually had toasted coconut sprinkled on top but sometimes it had a thin layer of chocolate icing. Nowadays I double this recipe because my favourite tin is a bit bigger than a standard swiss roll tin and  we like our slices a little more generous in size than this recipe from the 1960s.

Recipe

• 3ozs butter
• 3 ozs sugar
• 1 egg
• 5 ozs flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• Pinch of salt

Cream the butter and sugar until light, pale and creamy. Add the egg then fold in the sifted dry ingredients.

Spread into a greased swiss roll tin, prick all over and bake 15 minutes at 350f. Remove from oven, pour marshmellow over the top and sprinkle with coconut or ice thinly with chocolate icing when cold.

Marshmellow topping

• 1 cup sugar
• 1 cup water
• 1 dessertspoon gelatine
• 1 cup icing sugar
• few drops red food colouring

Dissolve the gelatine in the cold water in a saucepan, add sugar and bring to the boil. Simmer 10 minutes stirring occasionally. Remove from heat and cool for a few minutes, add icing sugar and food colouring then beat for 10 minutes until thick and creamy.