I'm currently in love with both slices and CWA recipes. For those who don't know, slices can range anywhere between sheet cake and finger biscuits (cue people from either side of the equator Googling the term they don't recognise. Sometime it's confusing to be multinational). Slices are a great alternative to baking an all out cake served in slices, because you can limit portion size by cutting the slice into bars or squares.
I think I have resisted the lure of slices because with my background, baking was a Big Thing (TM). Baking only ever happened for special occasions like birthdays or Christmas, and even then it was limited to Family Traditions (TM). It was only after I moved out of home that I started baking recreationally. I know, that's a weird thought - recreational baking - but I really do enjoy making things from the raw ingredients of flour, sugar, eggs and milk. I find it soothing.
The reason why I find baking and roasting relaxing is basically because I don't let the fussy, fiddly nature of peoples' expectations get in the way. I just focus on the creating and, most importantly, the taste.
Which brings us to Tim Tams! Tim tams are awesome, and I can easily finish a packet on my own in an evening. As I'm an older lady now, no longer a teenager, this isn't really advisable. Tim Tams are often used in the kitchen (rather than right out of the package) to make rum balls, but I am rarely in the mood for anything that fussy. Instead, I decided to modify a cake recipe from the CWA Classics cookbook (Kim's Chocolate Cake) to be a kind of a slicey thing with a Tim Tam layer. Because if thete's anything that can make Tim Tams better, it's cake!
Cake Plus Tim Tams Equals Extra Noms Slice Thing
200g pack of Tim Tams (classic)
2 cups plain flour
2 tablespoons cocoa
1 and 1/2 cups of sugar
1 and 1/2 cups of buttermilk
2 eggs
2 tablespoons of melted butter
Preheat oven to 180 C (350 F)
Grease and line a 20 x 30 cm baking dish
Melt butter in the microwave and leave to cool
Place the Tim Tams into a ziplock bag and bash heartily with a rolling pin (You want a mix of crumbs and chunks - also, it's very therapeutic to bash cookies in a bag)
Mix together dry ingredients
Add buttermilk and eggs, and mix briskly
Add the melted butter and mix with vigour! (You want a mostly smooth batter)
Pour half of the batter into the pan
Sprinkle the Tim Tam crumbs over the layer as evenly as possible
Coat with the remaining batter to cover the Tim Tam crumbs
Bake for 45-55 minutes
This will never be a light, fluffy cake type affair. Just looking at the list of ingredients, I was pretty sure that this wouldn't rise like a cake, but I was game to try it anyways (mostly because I needed an excuse to not eat the Tim Tams right out of the pack). It is instead a thick, dense, moist cake/biscuit thing that is the same density as a thick fudgey brownie, but is nowhere near as rich. This actually isn't a bad thing, because it means that at a slice-type-thing it is much more manageable.
This is one of those nice, filling tasty things that the CWA does so well - the ideal accompaniment to a cup of tea and a bit of a gossip.
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