Tan Slice

Since making my Gooey Caramel ANZAC Slice a few weeks ago I have been craving that gooey caramel. Before I baked as regularly as I do now I used to treat myself to a cookie caramel slice from Countdown occasionally.  I figured that it couldn’t be that hard to replicate at home and would give me my caramel fix, so I started googling for recipe ideas and discovered that the slice I wanted to make was more commonly known as ‘Tan Slice’. It is incredibly quick and easy to make, the hardest part is waiting for it to cool down so you can slice and enjoy!



Ingredients:
180g butter
½ cup White Sugar
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups white flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ cup chocolate chips

Caramel1 tin condensed milk
75 grams butter
2 tablespoons Golden Syrup
Method:
Pre-heat your oven to 180°C and line a 25cm x 15cm slice tin with baking paper.
Cream butter and sugar, then add in vanilla.  Sift in the flour and baking powder and gently mix until combined.
Press two thirds of the mixture evenly into your baking paper lined tin.
At this stage you will need to make your caramel.  To make the caramel melt together the condensed milk, golden syrup and butter in the microwave, I gave mine four zaps of 40 seconds each, stirring between each interval.  Your caramel is ready when it is golden and thickened.  Pour the caramel over the base you have created in your slice tin.
Mix the remaining base mixture with the chocolate chips and crumble over the caramel.
Bake in your pre-heated oven for 15-20 minutes.
Remove from the oven when the top of your slice is golden and leave in the tin to cool completely before slicing into squares.

Neiman Marcus Cookies

My friend Jarrah gave this cookie recipe to me  - it’s one of her favourites so I figured I would give it a go.  You may have actually seen this recipe before.  When Jarrah sent me the recipe I thought it had a weird name, so I googled it.  Apparently Neiman Marcus is a store (we don’t have it in New Zealand) and the recipe has been doing the rounds via email since around 1996.  Here’s the story that accompanies it:

“This is a true story... Please forward it to everyone that you can.... You will have to read it to believe it.... 

My daughter and I had just finished a salad at Neiman-Marcus Cafe in Dallas & decided to have a small dessert. Because both of us are such cookie lovers, we decided to try the "Neiman-Marcus Cookie". It was so excellent that I asked if they would give me the recipe and the waitress said with a small frown "I'm afraid not." Well" I said, "would you let me buy the recipe?" 

With a cute smile, she said YES". I asked how much and she responded, "Only two fifty, it's a great deal!" I said with approval, "just add it to my tab".. Thirty days later, I received my VISA statement from Neiman-Marcus and it was $285.00. I looked again and remembered I had only spent $9.95 for two salads and about $20.00 for a scarf. As I glanced at the bottom of the statement, it said, "Cookie Recipe - $250.00". That's outrageous!!! 

I called Neiman's Accounting Dept. and told them that the waitress said it was "two-fifty," which clearly does not mean "two hundred and fifty dollars" by any POSSIBLE interpretation of the phrase. Neiman-Marcus refused to budge.. They would not refund my money, because according to them, "What the waitress told you is not our problem. You have already seen the recipe - we absolutely will not refund your money at this point." I explained to her the criminal statutes which govern fraud in Texas. I threatened to refer them to the Better Business Bureau and the State's Attorney General for engaging in fraud. I was basically told, "Do what you want, we dont give a damn, and we're not refunding your money." I waited a moment, thinking of how I could get even,or even try to get any of my money back. I just said, "Okay, you folks got my $250.00, and now I'm going to have $250.00 worth of fun." 

I told her that I was going to see to it that every cookie lover in the United States with an e-mail account has a $250.00 cookie recipe from Neiman-Marcus... for free..She replied, "I wish you wouldn't do this" I said, "Well you should have thought of that before you ripped me off", and slammed down the phone on her.. So, here it is!!! Please, please, please pass it on to everyone you can possibly think of. I paid $250.00 dollars for this... I don't want Neiman-Marcus to ever get another penny off of this recipe....”

I thought the story seemed like a lie and one of the first things I found when looking up the recipe was an article on about.com providing evidence to prove this.  However, I tried the recipe out anyway.  The cookies are yum.  Jarrah reckons they are risky things to make because they taste healthy but there’s actually quite a bit of chocolate in them.  I halved the recipe, but I could have halved it again – the recipe makes heaps of cookies (apparently about 112).  I had two bowls to accommodate my mix and as I said, that was half the ingredients.  Anyways, here’s the recipe:

Ingredients
2 cups butter
680g chocolate chips
4 cups flour
2 cups brown sugar
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 cups sugar
500g chocolate, grated
5 cups blended oatmeal (measure oatmeal and blend in blender to a fine powder, I used oat bran instead)
4 eggs
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoon vanilla
3 cups chopped nuts (optional, I used peanuts)

Preheat the oven to 180°C.  Cream the butter and both sugars.  Add eggs and vanilla, mix together with the flour, oatmeal, salt, baking powder and bicarbonate of soda.  Add chocolate chips, grated chocolate and nuts.  Roll into balls and place two inches apart on a cookie sheet.  Bake for 10 minutes.