Wednesday, February 9, 2005

ginger crunch by whisks

ginger crunch is wonderful - a crunchy biscuit base smothered with ginger flavoured icing topped with little bijoux pieces of crystalised ginger. it's a very old fashioned slice popular in both new zealand and australia, and whilst it has ginger in it, it is only mildly spicy and is much loved by lots of people - miss c and miss k bring it to school and have friends clambering for it, and when i bring it for the life line volunteers, i suddenly have the lovely ladies there hugging me.

it seems to turn out best when the base has been baked a beautiful golden colour - if the oven doesn't heat evenly, consider rotating the baking tin to acheive an even gold.

125 g butter, softened
1/4 cup white sugar
1 cup self raising flour
1 teaspoon ground ginger

icing

90 grams butter
1 1/2 cups icing sugar
1 tablespoon golden syrup
2 teaspoons ground ginger
10 pieces crystallized ginger, chopped

preheat oven to 180 degrees celcius.
cream the butter and sugar in a medium sized bowl.
add the flour and ground ginger and mix well.
lightly press the mixture into a shallow sided baking tin measuring approximately 27cm x 17cm or 20cm square, lined with baking paper. be gentle when pressing the base into the tin - you don't want the base to be rock hard - you want it to have some crunch and still melt in the mouth.
bake on the centre shelf of the oven for 20-25 minutes or until golden.
during the last few minutes of baking, combine all the icing ingredients in a small saucepan and melt over a low-medium heat, stirring constantly. i like to use a whisk to mix the icing so there aren't any lumps. i love using a whisk.
remove the biscuit base from the oven and immediately pour the hot icing mixture as evenly as possible over the hot base. try to distribute the crystallised ginger evenly on top.
remove the slice from the baking tin when it has cooled by lifting the baking paper up and using it to help slide the slice onto a cutting board.
cut the slice into pieces as desired.
share the ginger crunch with someone - it's a nice thing to do and it makes the slice taste even better.

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