Wednesday, August 01, 2007

Gabriella’s Vanilla Slice

With a delicious filling of rich vanilla custard, these were the most popular slices in my household whenever they were made!

The slices are made with ready-made puff pastry and topped with passionfruit flavoured icing.

You will need:
500g packaged puff pastry (I use sheets as they fit my pan perfectly)
½-1 cup sugar
¾ cup cornflour
½ cup custard powder
1 litre (4 cups) milk
60g (20z) butter
2 egg-yolks
2 teaspoons vanilla

PASSIONFRUIT ICING
1 cup icing sugar
1 teaspoon butter
1 passionfruit
1 teaspoon water, approximately

Roll each half of pastry into a 32cm (13inch) square and then with a sharp knife trim to 30cm (12inch ) square.

Place one square of pastry on a large ungreased oven tray and bake in very hot oven 5 to 10 minutes or until well browned.

Trim pastry with a sharp knife to 23cm (9in).

Bake and trim remaining pastry in same way. Flatten ‘fluffy’ side of both pieces of pastry with hand.

Next, Line a 23cm (9inch) square slab tin with aluminium foil, bringing the foil up and over the sides of the container (this makes it easier to remove the slice when done).

Combine sugar, cornflour, and custard powder in a heavy-bottomed saucepan.

Blend with a little of the milk until smooth then stir in the rest of the milk.

Add butter.

Stir mixture constantly over heat until custard boils and thickens.

Remove from heat, quickly stir in vanilla, then stir in the beaten egg-yolks.

Pour hot custard immediately over pastry in tin.

Place remaining pastry on top of custard so the flattened side touches the hot custard.

Press pastry firmly with hand.

Spread evening with passionfruit icing.

When cool, refrigerate several hours or overnight until filling is set.

Passionfruit Icing
Sift icing sugar into small basin, add softened butter and pulp from passionfruit.

Add enough water, approximately 1 teaspoonful, to make icing of thick spreading consistency (the amount of water will depend on the size of the passionfruit). Beat well.

The Story Behind the Recipe

Is there anyone who doesn’t like Vanilla Slice? Certainly no one in my family would say "no" to some, if I make it - and they know about it. About three Christmases ago, the youngest princess enjoyed a secret stash of vanilla slice because I forgot to serve it after dinner and she didn’t remind me that it was there until the last piece several days later! Hence, it’s now known as Gabriella’s Vanilla Slice.

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