Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Adventures in Cooking - Mars Bar Slice

Mars Bar Slice is one of the quickest, cheapest and easiest slices to make. And it’s always a winner. ALWAYS. Now, for my non-Australian readers, a Mars Bar is the same as an American Milky Way Bar – just nougat and caramel covered in chocolate, no nuts. It’s delicious. So of course, what better way to eat it than mixed with rice bubbles and smeared in chocolate?

With that, I present to you a super-duper easy Mars Bar Slice recipe. Warning: one tray of this will last less than twelve hours, it's that delicious.


Ingredients
70 grams butter
1 tablespoon golden syrup
4 x 53 gram Mars Bars, chopped up
3 cups (60g) rice bubbles
250 grams good quality milk chocolate
30 grams additional butter (for icing)

Preparation Time
5 minutes
Cooking Time
About twenty minutes. Setting time is about two hours or so.


Method
Grease the base and sides of a 19 x 29cm slice pan with butter. Line the base with baking/grease proof paper and set aside.

Chop up the butter and Mars Bars. Combine the butter, golden syrup and Mars Bars in a double boiler over a saucepan of boiling water on a medium heat. You should really sample a piece of Mars Bar to make sure it's okay.

Melt, stirring with a wooden spoon, for 10 minutes or until the Mars Bars and butter melt and the mixture is smooth. Remove from the heat. The butter will melt really quickly, as will the chocolate and caramel of the Mars Bars. The nougat from the Mars Bars, though, will take ages to melt completely, so once you are left with blobs of softened nougat, use a wooden spoon to press the blobs gently against the side of the saucepan to help them melt faster. Once they are almost completely melted (ie. The nougat has turned to a sort of soft molten substance similar to the picture above), turn off the heat. It’s actually kind of fun smooshing the nougat. I think because it helps alleviate the boredom of watching something melt – you can’t really walk away from melting butter and chocolate, so the smooshing action is a nice relief from the tedium of staring into a saucepan for ten minutes. 

Whew, that was a really long bit of instructions. Sorry.

Place the rice bubbles in a large bowl. Add the butter/golden syrup/Mars Bars mixture and stir until well combined. There's no need to wait for the melted butter/Mars Bars to cool down, just mix it all together once it's melted.

Spoon the mix into the prepared slice pan and use the back of a spoon to smooth the surface evenly. Set aside for one hour to set and cool down completely. 

Place the chocolate and 30 grams of additional butter in a double boiler over a saucepan of boiling water. 

Stir until both the butter and chocolate melt completely.  How great does this melted chocolate look? I can assure you it tasted fantastic. FANTASTIC. We should have melted chocolate in more dishes, I think.

While it’s still quite warm, pour the butter/chocolate mix over the top of the slice to evenly coat it. Use the back of a dessert spoon to smooth it across the surface evenly. Set aside for an hour or so to set. Cut into squares to serve.

Et Voila!

Notes:
- If it’s a warm day, or you want the slice to set quickly, pop it into the fridge for about half an hour before icing it. But put it up the top of the fridge on a slightly less cool shelf, otherwise it will set too hard and shatter when you try to cut it up. Don't leave it in the fridge for more than forty five minutes.
- A lot of Mars Bar slice recipes call for about 20 grams of copha in the butter/Mars Bar/golden syrup mix. I never use it, and find the recipe to be completely fine without it. If anything, it’s probably less greasy than it would be with copha in it. The butter in the recipe is enough.

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8 comments:

Hannah said...

This slice is childhood to me! I actually blogged a version of it ages ago but I called it "Bonza Monza Bubble Truffles" because I used Woolies' fake version of Mars Bars called Bonzas, and made them in balls, and I'm a doofus. :P

But you know what? My mother never once made the chocolate topping when I was a kid growing up. I been gypped!

Julia @ Boredom Abounds said...

Oh, Hannah, it's just not Mars Bar Slice without the chocolate icing! This means you'll just have to make it again soon and try it with the melted chocolate. You'll never want to have it without again!

Anonymous said...

OH MY GOODNESS THIS WAS SO GOOD!! I remember queing up in school for the small stack of chocolate hedgehog slices they used to make in our tuck shop - so this brought back memoriiiess!!
I tried it with Lindt chocolate though - scored a chunk for a massive discount off notanotherfuckingcoupon - gotta love an awesome recipe and an awesome discount all on the same day- had the best time making these!!

Julia @ Boredom Abounds said...

Anonymous, I'm so glad you enjoyed it! Lindt chocolate on top is definitely the way to go I think!

Anonymous said...

Absolutely!! Will let you know if I find another brill discount off notanotherfuckingcoupon - but only in exchange for another amazing recipe ;)

Julia @ Boredom Abounds said...

Anonymous, it's a deal!

Miss Vodka said...

YUM!!!!

Anonymous said...

Sharing that deal I promised!! :D x x How are you with cocktail recipes? x x

http://bit.ly/v75oUx