On the ninth day of Christmas (White Christmas)

Okay my Internet connection is ridiculously slow at the moment so this blog post has been a pain in the butt to put together. Just imagine waiting for 5 minutes for each web page to load up - yes it really is that bad right now. Hopefully this will only be a small glitch and then we will have "lightning" speeds again tomorrow. Well we better.

Anyway onto the baking - it seems Better Homes and Gardens has let me down again! This time the White Christmas recipe (a classic Christmas treat in Australia) was close to a diaster. The recipe calls for 250g of Copha (vegetable shortening) however I found that it was nowhere near enough to make the slice stick together. So my White Christmas quickly became slightly yellow Christmas because I needed to add some unsalted butter (since I didn't have any extra Copha) to make it all stick together. But in the end it tastes pretty good - if you don't mind Copha. It really is a love or hate kind of ingredient. I don't mind it, but Mat thinks it is like eating wax - yummo. So if you can handle Copha then this is another treat that is great to package up and give us a gift or to eat yourself. It was last up to 3 weeks in an airtight container in the fridge.


White Christmas (from Better Homes and Gardens - December 2009)

250g Copha (vegetable shortening), chopped (I would have 2 packs on hand just in case you need more to bind it together)
3 cups puffed-rice cereal
1 cup desiccated coconut
1 cup icing sugar
1 cup powdered milk
300g rose-flavoured Turkish delight, chopped (I used red glace cherries instead)
1/2 cup toasted almond flakes

1. Line base and sides of a lamington tin with baking paper.
   
2. Put Copha in a small heavy-based pan over a low heat and melt. Remove from heat and stand until lukewarm.
3. Combine cereal, coconut, icing sugar, powdered milk, turkish delight and almonds and stir to combine.
   
4. Make a well in the centre, add Copha and stir until mixture is uniformly moist and coated in Copha. Spoon into prepared tin and pack down with the back of a spoon. Cover with cling wrap and refrigerate for 2-3 hours or until firm.
5. Remove White Christmas from the tin and cut into bars or squares.

Rating?
3 out of 5 reindeers!