The great Kiwi comeback

Growing up in Australia with Kiwi parents and grandparents, I was well-used to some Kiwi classics – chocolate fish (which I still scoff regularly); pineapple lumps; hokey pokey (which my mother used to make); and Q-Tol antiseptic lotion. Chocolate fish and pineapple lumps weren’t available in Oz, so aunts and uncles travelling across The Ditch to visit the Oz-based family would bring much-needed supplies.

Q-Tol is a vivid memory from my childhood. It’s a pink lotion with a very distinctive, pleasant smell. I well remember the bull ant incident. I reckon I was about 9 or 10 years old and I was at my grandparent’s place in Avalon. My parents were there too – for the Sunday family roast – and I wanted to go out into the garden. Can’t remember why but I remember it was summer and I was wearing no shoes. My father said: you should put your shoes on and me (being occasionally stubborn) said no.

This was typical of Dad. He’d tell me not to do something and, if I didn’t listen, he’d let me go ahead and do it. It was his way of teaching me to take responsibility for my actions. So out I went into the garden and within minutes was stung on the big toe by a huge bull ant. These little bastards are endemic to Australia and can be very aggressive.

I clearly remember the bull ant hanging off my toe, me howling and Dad calmly making his way towards me with a bottle of Q-Tol. The pink lotion is very soothing and I’ve always had a bottle in my bathroom. Whilst living in Australia, any time I went to NZ to speak at conferences, I’d pick up several bottles. Now, I can buy Q-Tol here in the supermarket and, every time I use Q-Tol lotion, it reminds me of my childhood (and that bastard of a bull ant).

But one thing I never tried was Choco-ade. My parents never mentioned it and I’d never heard of it until this year. And this whole story of the Choco-ade comeback just shows you the power of social media. For whatever reason, Griffins stopped producing Choco-ade biscuits in the 1980s. It seems to have been a very popular biscuit, so what the?

A Kiwi mother started a Facebook page urging Griffins to bring back Choco-ade (not really keen on the name I must say). I read that her husband craved the biscuit he used to love in the 80s, so she decided to start a campaign for its return. Griffins conducted a Facebook poll and found that over 14,000 New Zealanders were calling for the return of the quirky biscuit. I say quirky because, like with Aussie Tim Tams, there’s a special way to eat one.

The biscuit is a round choc-orange flavoured thing and looks a bit like it has a fluted, short crust pastry base. It has a jam filling (not sure of the flavour) and a circle of chocolate. Apparently, Kiwi kids would bite off the pastry base, lick the jam off, then nibble the chocolate. Someone told me they used to love eating the biscuit carefully, so that the chocolate didn’t break.

TV ads started appearing and I think Griffins relaunched Choco-ade in July this year. I was intrigued but couldn’t find any packets of the biscuit in my local supermarket. I was told they’d sold out and it seems that Choco-ade was New Zealand’s biggest selling biscuit during the first week of its relaunch.

Oh well. I forgot about it but this week spotted a packet of Choco-ade in a supermarket in Rangiora. There was only this one packet left so I snapped it up.

Mmmmm…..not sure what the fuss is about. Does this relaunched biscuit taste the same as it used to? Because if it does, it’s not THAT great. The jam layer could be thicker if you ask me. In fact, the whole biscuit is a bit on the thin side. Certainly, the pastry base is too thin. They did remind me though of Arnott’s Jaffa biscuits, which I grew up with in Australia. Yeah, I know, they are different biscuits but still a choc-orange flavour.

This caused me to look up Arnott’s (I have not bought a single Arnott’s biscuit since the Yanks acquired this Aussie icon in 1997. Boycott anyone?). OMG. There is NO Arnott’s Jaffa biscuit any longer! At least I can’t find them on the Arnott’s Australian website. I’m not talking jaffa cakes; I’m talking the chocolate-coated biscuit that was my mother’s favourite.

This image is from a 1982 TV commercial for the biscuit, which is referred to as a jaffa cake biscuit. I don’t remember them being called jaffa cake; I thought it was just plain old jaffa biscuit. Anyway. What the? Are they no longer available? Have the Yanks messed around with an Aussie icon?

Suddenly, the Choco-ade biscuit is looking very tempting. Indeed, I had a second biscuit and ate it the way the Kiwis scoff it. I’m now a fan and see what the fuss is about.

I’m considering launching my own social media campaign to bring back an Aussie classic – Cahills Caramel Sauce. I’ve blogged about the decadent sauce before and even recreated it after a few months of experimentation back in 2007. Well, not quite but near enough.

I was lucky to have tasted the original Cahills Caramel Sauce. You could buy it in waxed tubs in Aussie supermarkets and I’d eat it straight out of the waxed tub or drench it over vanilla ice cream. Then it disappeared and was relaunched in either the 1980s or 1990s. But it was a very sad shadow of the former gloriously thick, rich sauce. The relaunched version didn’t seem to be around for long.

I know a lot of readers land on this blog looking for Cahills Caramel Sauce, so I’m thinking about setting up a Facebook page. But not sure who owns the rights to the sauce. It was created by Teresa Cahill as far as I know and she died in the late 70s, which probably explains why the product disappeared.

I have since found that the Sydney Morning Herald published the original Cahills Caramel Sauce recipe in Column 8, May 29 2010. Is this REALLY the original recipe though? Column 8 said it came from a 1964 notebook of some grandmother. Well, I plan to try it out soon but meanwhile here’s the recipe:

‘‘2 ozs butter, 3/4 cup Carnation milk,  cup white sugar, 1 cups brown sugar. Put all into a saucepan and stir until boiling and the sugars have dissolved. Simmer for about four minutes.’’

The newly relaunched Kiwi classic biscuit.

Almost Cahills

So I did promise to share with you the recipe that I created for my mother’s 90th birthday. To refresh the memory: as I was growing up, Cahills Caramel Sauce could be bought in supermarkets. It was a deliciously thick, gooey caramel sauce that I’d whack on ice-cream.

The famous Cahills restaurants existed in Sydney during the time I was growing up but for some (very sad) reason, my parents never took me along to one. So all I had were stories from my mother about how she used to enjoy eating their famous ice-cream cake and caramel sauce at one of the family restaurants prior to WWII. At least I actually tasted Cahills caramel sauce. I can tell you that the caramel sauce you buy now is nowhere near as decadent as the original Cahills (in the 1980s or 1990s, I remember a relaunch of Cahills but it was much thinner – they must have lost the recipe!).

So as a surprise for my mum’s 90th birthday, I decided to make an ice-cream cake with caramel sauce and I spent about four months experimenting with various ingredients. I made many caramel sauce recipes and was starting to panic as time went by. But one of my final recipes hit the mark as far as I was concerned. To me, it tasted as I remembered it. My mother declared it to be as good as she remembered it too.

I’ve decided to share it here on the Daily Oxford blog. For all you suckers who never tasted the original thick sauce, go ahead and make it. Experience what you missed out on. For those of us who delighted in the original sauce, here is my recipe. Tell me if it’s as you remember it.

You need:

3/4 cup brown sugar

2 tablespoons golden syrup

1/2 cup milk

2 tablespoons sweetened condensed milk

2 level tablespoons butter

Place all ingredients into saucepan. Stir well and make sure sugar is dissolved before the mixture boils. Boil for 8 minutes. Add a pinch of salt and vanilla.

Another version I tried, which seemed to create an equally good sauce is this:

1 cup brown sugar

30g butter

2 beaten egg yolks

4 tablespoons milk

Melt together the sugar and butter. Add the beaten egg yolks and the milk. Stir together and bring to the boil – make sure you keep stirring – and then boil for a few minutes.

My preference was for the first version of the recipe and that’s the one I used to make the ice-cream cake with caramel sauce.

Is it Cahills?

I know I’ve shocked some of you with recent posts, not only showing photos of my culinary exploits, but giving you recipes. I can now report further success and another recipe. When I was growing up, way back before the Parthenon was built (as a great friend of mine likes to remind me), Cahills Caramel Sauce was a huge thing in Australia. I just remember that you could buy it in a small tub at Coles or Woolies but apparently there were Cahills Family Restaurants in Sydney, which were famous for their ice-cream cake, dripping with gooey, fudgy caramel sauce.

The great tragedy of my childhood, otherwise a very happy one, was that my parents never took me to a Cahills Family Restaurant – because apparently there was one in the Strand Arcade in Sydney when I was growing up. Frankly, I have not forgiven them for this. And so I had to content myself with the waxed tubs of caramel sauce from the supermarket whacked onto some vanilla ice-cream and eaten at home. My mother used to torture me with stories of how before the War (that’s the Second World one), she would go every day for lunch to Cahills for a chicken sandwich and a piece of their ice-cream cake.

Despite my parents sad neglect of me when it came to Cahills caramel sauce, I spent about four months before my mother’s 90th birthday recreating the sauce. I couldn’t find a recipe for it and so experimented with various caramel sauce recipes until it tasted the way I remembered it. Somewhere in the boxes marked BC (that’s for books on cooking) is my recipe, which frankly I should guard jealously. But when I find it, I will post it here for all the Cahills caramel sauce lovers and for you poor suckers who never tasted the smooth, sensuousness of the caramel as it slid down….sorry.

In the meantime, I felt like making a caramel sauce to whack on some ice-cream the other day, so I consulted my grandmother’s handwritten recipe book and voilà – I found her recipe for a thinner sauce. But it still oozes with that rich buttery taste of Cahills. So here’s the recipe should you wish to dazzle a plate of ice-cream with an amazing sauce.

The finished caramel sauce, sitting in the 1940s/1950s yellow jug I bought recently.

125g butter

1 cup brown sugar

1 cup water

2 tablespoons golden syrup

1 1/2 tablespoons cornflour

1/4 cup cream

In a saucepan, combine the butter and sugar over a low heat – until butter is melted and sugar dissolved. Keep stirring until mixture turns into a thick syrup. Be careful not to burn the mixture. Bring to boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 3 minutes. Combine the golden syrup, water and cornflour – mix until smooth – then add to the butter and sugar mixture. Stir until smooth. Then bring to the boil, reduce heat and simmer for 2 minutes. Remove mixture from heat and stir in cream. This recipe makes around 1 1/2 cups of rather delish caramel sauce. Not as thick as Cahills but still great to whack on the old vanilla ice-cream. You can serve the sauce warm or cold.

UPDATE: in a later post, I shared two versions of the recipe I created.

Golden, rich and slightly decadent caramel sauce on vanilla ice-cream.