Good news! I am back stateside and ready to get back into my full-size kitchen and bake again. I brought back some goodies from New Zealand and decided to make Lolly Cake for my friends here in Michigan. Kiwis call candy "lolly" and this actually isn't what I would consider a cake. However, it is very sweet and yummy and I saw it all over the place in NZ.
First, you need malt biscuits (AKA cookies). I brought these Griffin's biscuits back from New Zealand. You also need lolly for inside of the "cake." In New Zealand, they use lollies called Eskimos or Fruit Puffs. They are basically fruity circus peanut candy.
I don't know about you, but I think that they sort of look like mummies:
If you aren't about to buy Griffin's or Eskimos, just use malt cookies and some other circus peanut type candy.
Lolly Cake
- 1 stick plus 1 T unsalted butter
- 3/4 cup condensed milk
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 250g malt biscuit
- 1 bag fruit puff candy
- shredded coconut
- In a microwave-safe bowl, melt butter
- Add condensed milk to the butter and mix with a spoon. If the condensed milk does not mix well with the butter, heat for 30 seconds on high in the microwave and stir well.
- Stir in the vanilla.
- Use a food processor to crumb the cookies. Combine the melted butter mixture and the cookies into a large bowl and stir well.
- Chop the puff candy into small pieces and add to the large bowl and stir well.
- Press the mixture into a small square pan so that the cake is approximately 1.5-2" thick.
- Cover with coconut (you may lightly press the coconut into the cake, but do not press too hard).
- Allow the lolly cake to harden in the fridge covered for at least one hour. Cut into squares before serving.
Here's a little confession: I never tried lolly cake in NZ! I did try it this time and I thought it was quite good (let's be honest, what has condensed milk as an ingredient and isn't tasty) although I didn't care for the candy inside. I served it to some friends who all liked it much more than pavlova, although they were about 50/50 on whether they liked the lolly in the lolly cake. It was just nice to be able to share a culinary aspect of my trip with my friends and to make something that didn't take all that much time at all :)