Chocolate Caramel Slice

My Nanna was famous for her Chocolate Caramel Slice, which we always called Chocolate Value in our family. She was famously making it from at least the 70s, when my Grandfather was a University professor and warden of one of the colleges. They lived in for a few years and would host an afternoon tea for a small group of students each week, every time serving chocolate value and listening to the angst of young fresh-faced uni students. My grandparents had a few tales to tell about this time in their lives, not least because 2 of their sons were students at the university at the time. Imagine the dramas those uni students had in the 70s!

I’ve been thinking about my Nanna a lot lately since the first anniversary of her death has just passed. And I’m always thinking about chocolate so it seemed perfect to make her famous Chocolate Value. My daughter was a great help at sifting flour and mixing the ingredients for the base, but this recipe has to be cooked in stages and needs to cool before the chocolate topping goes on, so it can be a bit frustrating for impatient little ones (and Mums) who want to taste the fruits of their labour immediately. It is well worth the wait though, and an impatient sweet tooth can always be placated with cleaning condensed milk out of the tin with your finger. Did I just say that out loud?

I’m going to give you the original recipe here, but I’ll also give you my substitutions for ingredients not available here. In my quest to find a Copha replacement I discovered that both Copha and Chocolate Caramel Slice are Australian specialities. Who knew?

Base

1 cup self-raising flour
1 cup coconut
½ cup brown sugar
125g melted margarine or butter

Caramel Topping

1 tin sweetened condensed milk
1 dessertspoon butter
2 tablespoons golden syrup

Chocolate Topping

125g chocolate
30g copha

Mix self-raising flour, coconut, brown sugar and margarine or butter and press into a lamington tin, pushing down well. Bake for 15 minutes at 180-190°C.

While the base is cooking, mix the condensed milk, butter and golden syrup in a saucepan. Warm enough for the butter to melt and mix, without cooking.

Pour over the hot biscuit, spread and put back in the oven for 15 minutes at a slightly lower temperature.

When it is cold, melt the chocolate and copha and pour over slice. Allow to set. You may need to put it in the fridge if ambient temperature is warm.

The ingredients I couldn’t find were golden syrup and copha. Apparently golden syrup is a British/Australian thing, so I substituted molasses, which I picked up last time we were in the States. This gives the caramel a richer flavour so you may want to reduce the amount used, if you prefer.

I found another recipe for chocolate caramel slice which used vegetable oil instead of copha, or I guess you could use butter, but in the end I just left it out and used straight chocolate (a bit more than 125g) and it was fine.

Enjoy!