To start the process rolling we first need to find the recipe.
Mad dash to find the newly acquired I-phone … yes we cheated and took a photo of the recipe whilst out shopping yesterday. Sneaky? Yes, but honestly it was needed!
So out come the ingredients: flour, sugar, coconut, butter…. the first four ingredients need to be combined, thus posing the first of many questions from hubby….
“How do you combine butter when it’s this hard!!??,” he says. Oh dear, if only he had read the instructions to see it said to melt the butter first ?
Ok crisis averted and back to the task at hand. The three-year-old begins to sift the flour and hubby begins to whinge that he has to do all the work. His words are along the lines of, “Looks like daddy is going to do all the work while mummy sits and writes,” “Ahhh don’t sift to the floor!” “Don’t put your fingers in it!” Hmmm seems to me he is now getting an idea of a typical day baking with a child.

The real fun starts for me when he goes to collect the butter from the microwave, shrieks of delight fill the air, “It’s melted,” he says as if this were ‘news’ to him. Suddenly the kitchen is in overdrive, oven on and waiting, hubby asks the question; “Does this mixture look right?” Before I can answer our daughter has her hand in and is eating the raw dough.
“Mmmm delicious,” she announces. I figure if she thinks it tastes good then he must be on to a good thing. Anybody knows that impressing a three-year-old in the kitchen can be hard work!
So with base in the oven hubby begins the second stage of the process…. the caramel sauce. Now as many of us know, especially those chefs amongst us, making caramel sauce from condensed milk is not easy.
No lumps please.
Don’t burn it.
Keep stirring over low heat.
My helpful advice seems to have fallen on deaf ears, I look up from my writing notes to see a pot bubbling away on the stove, and hubby hanging over the sink licking the spoon gleefully.
Speaking of distractions I realise our daughter has also lost interest and is happily chatting away in her sand pit.
Quick someone save the sauce!
Hubby begins to moan about doing it all by himself…. ahhhhh men!
The wafting aroma of caramel sauce brings her back inside and I watch amused as the two of them battle it out for the caramel covered spoon.
With the sauce smothered over the base and happily cooking in the oven the third, and final, step of this long process beings.

Chocolate. Melted.
So with bowls at the ready the chocolate is melted (yes microwaves can do that too!) and reluctantly drizzled over the browned caramel sauce and left to set.
I look around the once sparkling white kitchen and my eyes meet with the mess…. bowls discarded, spoons, cups and mixers all clutter the once gleaming counter top. Sand crunches underfoot, sticky caramel tries to glue me to the sink, but above it all I notice the smiles on two happy and proud faces.
The mess is worth it, although have I told you we are currently selling?? Inspections can be at any time, sometimes unannounced, so we set to work to get the kitchen back to its white shiny glory.
Proud hubby, excited child and a mum who is looking forward to a cup of tea and a piece of choc-caramel slice. YUM 🙂