Source: The Australian Women's Weekly Cakes and Slices Cookbook, ISBN 978-1-74245-497-9, (c) Bauer Media Limited 1987, Special Collectors Edition, reprinted 2014. p116.
This is a very easy slice to make. It consists of six ingredients - four dry ingredients which you measure into a bowl and combine, plus butter and honey. You melt the butter, mix in the honey, then pour the combined butter and honey mixture over the dry ingredients, stir to combine, drop the whole lot into a lamington tray (or other low-sided flat tray) and bake in a 180C oven for twenty minutes. Then leave it to sit for fifteen minutes before chopping it into slice-sized pieces, and letting it cool in the tin.
This is definitely a slice you could get young school-age kids to help cook - most of the work involved is in measuring the ingredients, and the recipe itself is a pretty forgiving one, so a few grams over or under isn't going to destroy anything. You'd have to supervise them with melting the butter, and possibly with stirring in the honey to the melted butter, as well as the business of getting things in and out of the oven, but other than that, you could pretty much get a five or six year old to do most of the work involved in this slice, and they'd have something they could say they cooked at the end of it. Which is always a good way of getting kids started with cooking.
The slice smells gorgeous while cooking (I'm drooling as I write this while it bakes...), and comes out a nice golden-brown. Chopping it up is fairly straightforward, although I think the next time I make this, I'm going to line my lamington tray with a bit of baking paper, since I foresee a slightly difficult time getting some bits away from the edges without breakages (the recipe says to grease the tray; I'm lazy and don't like scrubbing things, so I'll line it next time). The book gives a keeping time of one week, but I suspect this is the minimum keeping time in the Women's Weekly test kitchen, where they're all burned out on baked goods (in a household with small children or people with a bit of a sweet tooth, it probably won't last even that long!).
One thing to be aware of: if you don't line the tray, you're going to have to grease it very generously, or be willing to spend a bit of time levering the finished and cooled slice out of it (I wound up using a dinner knife rather than a spatula to lever things out, and had to re-cut a lot of it). This slice shatters easily, so I suspect even if you do line your tray and lift everything out easily, you're still going to be left with about a cup or so of crispy shattered remains when it comes to cutting things up. Mind you, those could possibly be used as a sort of praline topping on ice-cream or something like that, if you're fanatic about avoiding waste.
The finished product is crisp, crunchy, and sweet. There's a slight taste of honey, but mostly it's just sweetness and toasted cereal/coconut flavours to be had. Very pleasant overall, and as I said, easy to make, with the hardest bit being removing it from the tray at the end of proceedings (something which is probably easy to avoid with a bit of baking paper). I'll probably be making this one again, possibly with a few variants on the honey and the type of sugar (I'm interested to see what a variant made with golden syrup or brown sugar might turn out like).
Difficulty: 0.2 out of 5 - as above, this could largely be mixed up by a six-year-old with minor adult assistance.
Spoons/Fuss and Bother: 0.5 out of 5. Very little standing involved - just while the butter is melting; everything else can be done seated at the kitchen table if necessary. The mixture is very easy to mix up - all the ingredients are very light-weight, so arm and shoulder strength issues would only be of significance if you're having trouble with 200g - 500g weights. Some standing and arm strength issues might come into play with chopping up the slice, but I suspect those could mostly be overcome by cutting up the slice after giving it a shorter cooling time, and as mentioned above, lining the pan first.
Overall: 5 out of 5, mostly for ease of preparation and satisfactory final result.
Considerations: Contains butter and honey, so vegans won't be particularly keen on it (although if you substitute in a vegetable margarine and golden syrup, you'd have something vegans can consume). Main ingredients are cornflakes and rolled oats, which may or may not be suitable for people with gluten sensitivities depending on the brands you purchase; other major ingredients are coconut and sugar. Do not live solely on a diet of this, your dentist will hate you. Couldn't say how it would work out with regards to kosher or halal considerations, but I think it should be okay for those (if anyone wants to let me know otherwise, please, do feel free! I'm well aware I'm not fully up on the subtleties of either of these).
ETA 07 SEP 2018: I've been informed by the lovely![[profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
princesskessie that rolled oats are NOT considered gluten free in Australia (see her comment below). She suggests quinona flakes, sorghum flakes, millet flakes or rice flakes as reasonable substitutes.
This is a very easy slice to make. It consists of six ingredients - four dry ingredients which you measure into a bowl and combine, plus butter and honey. You melt the butter, mix in the honey, then pour the combined butter and honey mixture over the dry ingredients, stir to combine, drop the whole lot into a lamington tray (or other low-sided flat tray) and bake in a 180C oven for twenty minutes. Then leave it to sit for fifteen minutes before chopping it into slice-sized pieces, and letting it cool in the tin.
This is definitely a slice you could get young school-age kids to help cook - most of the work involved is in measuring the ingredients, and the recipe itself is a pretty forgiving one, so a few grams over or under isn't going to destroy anything. You'd have to supervise them with melting the butter, and possibly with stirring in the honey to the melted butter, as well as the business of getting things in and out of the oven, but other than that, you could pretty much get a five or six year old to do most of the work involved in this slice, and they'd have something they could say they cooked at the end of it. Which is always a good way of getting kids started with cooking.
The slice smells gorgeous while cooking (I'm drooling as I write this while it bakes...), and comes out a nice golden-brown. Chopping it up is fairly straightforward, although I think the next time I make this, I'm going to line my lamington tray with a bit of baking paper, since I foresee a slightly difficult time getting some bits away from the edges without breakages (the recipe says to grease the tray; I'm lazy and don't like scrubbing things, so I'll line it next time). The book gives a keeping time of one week, but I suspect this is the minimum keeping time in the Women's Weekly test kitchen, where they're all burned out on baked goods (in a household with small children or people with a bit of a sweet tooth, it probably won't last even that long!).
One thing to be aware of: if you don't line the tray, you're going to have to grease it very generously, or be willing to spend a bit of time levering the finished and cooled slice out of it (I wound up using a dinner knife rather than a spatula to lever things out, and had to re-cut a lot of it). This slice shatters easily, so I suspect even if you do line your tray and lift everything out easily, you're still going to be left with about a cup or so of crispy shattered remains when it comes to cutting things up. Mind you, those could possibly be used as a sort of praline topping on ice-cream or something like that, if you're fanatic about avoiding waste.
The finished product is crisp, crunchy, and sweet. There's a slight taste of honey, but mostly it's just sweetness and toasted cereal/coconut flavours to be had. Very pleasant overall, and as I said, easy to make, with the hardest bit being removing it from the tray at the end of proceedings (something which is probably easy to avoid with a bit of baking paper). I'll probably be making this one again, possibly with a few variants on the honey and the type of sugar (I'm interested to see what a variant made with golden syrup or brown sugar might turn out like).
Difficulty: 0.2 out of 5 - as above, this could largely be mixed up by a six-year-old with minor adult assistance.
Spoons/Fuss and Bother: 0.5 out of 5. Very little standing involved - just while the butter is melting; everything else can be done seated at the kitchen table if necessary. The mixture is very easy to mix up - all the ingredients are very light-weight, so arm and shoulder strength issues would only be of significance if you're having trouble with 200g - 500g weights. Some standing and arm strength issues might come into play with chopping up the slice, but I suspect those could mostly be overcome by cutting up the slice after giving it a shorter cooling time, and as mentioned above, lining the pan first.
Overall: 5 out of 5, mostly for ease of preparation and satisfactory final result.
Considerations: Contains butter and honey, so vegans won't be particularly keen on it (although if you substitute in a vegetable margarine and golden syrup, you'd have something vegans can consume). Main ingredients are cornflakes and rolled oats, which may or may not be suitable for people with gluten sensitivities depending on the brands you purchase; other major ingredients are coconut and sugar. Do not live solely on a diet of this, your dentist will hate you. Couldn't say how it would work out with regards to kosher or halal considerations, but I think it should be okay for those (if anyone wants to let me know otherwise, please, do feel free! I'm well aware I'm not fully up on the subtleties of either of these).
ETA 07 SEP 2018: I've been informed by the lovely
princesskessie that rolled oats are NOT considered gluten free in Australia (see her comment below). She suggests quinona flakes, sorghum flakes, millet flakes or rice flakes as reasonable substitutes.