Malteaser cake recipe - help a Catholic out

[Lunawuna]

Help on an Ecumenical matter please So I've been dipping into the world of traybakes - I can make a pretty respectable caramel square (nice, thick, chewy caramel!) and Mars bar crispy square, but I need a good recipe for Malteaser cake.

I tried the BBC Good Food recipe the other day and it didn't have that lovely feeling of your pupils dilating with the sweetness of it all like a good traybake normally has. Am I doomed to never get it right because of my lack of Prod blood? Help! How can getting the right ratio of digestive biscuits, butter, syrup and chocolate be so hard?!

I'm normally a good baker! Honest!

I had an almost dry wedding (we had champagne for the toasts) because most of my guests were teetotal Presbyterians anyway (or maybe more realistically, they pretended to the outside world to be teetotal). I didn't want people refusing to come on the grounds that there would be alcohol there. Also, the minister marrying us put huge pressure on us not to have alcohol, with threats that he would only agree to marry us if we gave him his word there would be none. He even told us that his preference for a reception was catering in the church hall as he disliked hotels because they sell alcohol. I did feel a bit sorry for my Catholic friends who came expecting drinking and partying. The bar was open though, so no one was prevented from buying wine if they wanted it. I got married so long ago that it wasn't legal at that stage in N Ireland to hold a wedding anywhere other than church or a registry office and both sets of parents were refusing to attend a registry office (those being for people who were getting married 'in a hurry' in their experience) so we felt forced.

I actually attended a wedding of an incredibly wealthy couple who had a completely dry wedding, as in they paid the hotel to close the bar. It was in a very fancy hotel and there were about 250 guests, it must have doubled the price of the reception but so determined were they to avoid alcohol that that's what they did. I remember everyone turning up for the evening party (probably another 200 guests) and going to the bar and walking away again looking bemused, with their glass of diluting orange.

I've been to a very very long wedding in a fancy hotel that was practically dry as everyone choked at the price of drink but not otherwise.

The most religious couple I know had the a self catered evening buffet, it was sandwich and traybake heaven. Best mint step squares ever.

We didn’t have a dry wedding - open bar (but not paid for by us), 2 bottles of wine per table and a drink of choice for the toasts. However certain tables had shloer instead of the wine - it just wasn’t worth upsetting my granny or other relatives by offering them alcohol. (We made the table plan very specifically to ensure the only people not offered alcohol were all on the same tables.)

I also had artificial flowers! My mum, one of my bridesmaids and myself all have severe hay fever and it just wasn’t worth it to have real flowers. For what it’s worth - no-one knew and when people saw my bouquet months later in my house they were perplexed. Flowers came from a place in E.Belfast - they were kind of rubbery rather than papery - very realistic.

We did not have traybakes at our wedding however because we got married in Scotland and the hotel didn’t allow people to bring any food in except for the cake. My mother still hasn’t got over it nearly 20 years later - she is asked to make traybakes and shortbread for so many weddings and was rather upset that she couldn’t make them for her own daughter’s. (Made all the worse when they served Walkers shortbread at the evening reception - she was NOT impressed!)

Excuse the typos. Mint aero squares!

My word! Presbyterianism in Scotland is rather different. I well remember back in the 70s one of my mum's cousins got married. I can't remember now whether she and my Dad went, or whether she was just reacting to reports from my aunt, but I well remember the shocked tones in which she relayed the news that some of the guests had got into a brawl during the Reception and more than one ended up being chucked into the hotel pool. The demon drink was undoubtedly a factor there. I associate teetotalism (is that a word?) more with the Baptists and possibly Methodists.

Catholic here with what I thought was an irrational hatred of traybakes. It's obviously something more deep rooted and only MN has shown me why.

Yep, during the reformation the RCs got to keep, literelly, the bells (and not so literally the whistles) latin, statues etc.

But the Protestants, well they got all the sugary goodness.

My 'mixed herritage' probablky influences why I can make great shortbread but not many other sweet things.

(Several generations of 'marrying out' and converting, my 4 grandparents were 1 protestant, 2 cradle cathlics, one convert from methodism.)

who on earth came up with an apple and mars bar sandwich

A place near me does 'nutella pizza'.

As for tea and coffee -, my dad's church has a bar in the corner of the parochial hall, but locked because they didn't renew the licence, so any 'do' you hear people arrive by the 'clink, clink' of the bottles in hadbags.

Having married 30+ years ago we didn’t have a dry reception as such. No wine at the meal but there was a bar. I don’t know how popular providing alcohol was in those days. Getting it videoed was just catching on as a big thing.

DH side of the family were mostly teetotal, where my side, shall we say made up for it.
As soon as was respectfully possible (or not), my lot scarpered to their local social club where the drink was cheaper .

My RC friend of over 30 years is a ‘Pioneer’, many of her family are too, so being teetotal is not just a Presbyterian/Baptist/Methodist thing.

Dh has two aunties who are pioneers. It was about two years after a wee Baileys became a 'thing' that someone mentioned it wasn't just a creamy sugary puddingy thing but contained alcohol.
Worst of all though we had a neighbour in the Salvation Army who became a secret drinker. Her husband worked for the Army full time, and it was a massive problem for them.

A relative who is a tradesman told me a few years ago that the most extensive collection of booze he ever saw in a house was in a no TV, long skirt and beret wearing Brethren home, the sort where the lady of the house wasn't allowed to handle money and that sort of thing. He was looking for the fusebox or something and traced it back to a cupboard which was packed full of booze and the homeowner was mortified and apologetic. Relative had to politely explain that the only person who thought it was wrong to have alcohol in the house appeared to be the person it belonged to and that he didn't care one jot if they enjoyed a gin and tonic of an evening.

It's funny, but at the same time the hypocrisy is maddening.

I've images of the lady of the house getting wasted, donning trousers and juggling money at nights there Isabelle

All that repression must be bad for the soul.

I'm not even Irish and I know you shouldn't be attempting this. Were you confirmed? If so just stick to cakes, really.

A place near me does 'nutella pizza'.

I came across dessert pizzas in Brazil once. If I recall there was a chocolate one and a banana one (which had a fruit jam type base sauce instead of tomatoes). Was quite tasty.

I've had dessert pizza and wasn't enthused by it, not even the pear and caramelised brown sugar topped with whipped cream one, which would normally be a combination of flavours that I love. The pizza base is so bland that it seems to suck the flavour out of a sweet topping.

Dh suggested I made sweet vol au vents, but that seems wrong - sponge flan or meringue. Or is there a sweet filling I don't know?
Now I'm thinking about my mother's lemon meringue pie in the seventies, made with a packet filling.
I have annoyed my dd by singing gospel hall choruses with actions while she was making scrambled eggs. Deep and Wide, Give me oil in my lamp, The wise man built his house upon the rock...Once I get on a roll I can't stop

Egg it’s funny how choruses from our childhood pop up from the attics of our memories. Lovely memories for me. I’ll add Wide, wide as the oceans to the list.

When we were teenagers, my friend took a fancy to one of the Gospel Hall teachers who invited her to come along.

She talked me into going with her We duly arrived, her looking glam, not realising we would be the only 2 adults in the ‘children’s’ meeting.

I wanted to leave but she begged me not to. We sat on children’s chairs, our knees hitting our chin. The sad thing was it didn’t end in a date for her, but he did give us a lollipop each for attending

My DMILs favourite was a Paverlova, bless her.

Lollipop! My mum still makes lemon meringue pie with a packet mix and a readymade flan case. I think she adds an egg. It's delicious.

This it? I use it to make mini lemon meringue pies with pre-made miniature pastry cases for afternoon teas.

it’s funny how choruses from our childhood pop up from the attics of our memories.

I'm in the Lord's Army. Yes Sir!

My kids did a weekly postal bible school lesson in primary school, a story, comprehension and colouring. About this time of year the organisers came down from Cavan in a camper van for a prize giving. It involved a flannel board story and a lot of singing. Then tea and biscuits but not tray bakes.
Prizes were those protestant holy pictures of kittens or tractors with bible verses.
In a coi school in Munster. They got short shrift when a new principal arrived, but the child evangelical foundation man still goes in every Wednesday. He got sacked by a different school where kids were terrified by old testament stories.

RC here with a Protestant mother - no side ever did a tray bake.
I only learned about them via "the thread".
I am obviously in the wrong country.

Went to one wedding hosted by pioneers. No wine at the table - they did generously provide a glass of sparkling for the toast. It was widely known the venue - a fancy joint in Ballymena had a habit of over changing at the bar, so most arrived with big handbags full of vodka and gin and a wild night was had, despite the host's intentions!

God I love this thread.
So many cultural subtexts- I rarely snort laughing at MN threads but I've snorting at this one for an hour.

Well, speaking of weddings.
Long, long ago when wearing wigs were fashionable my mum, who had a good head of hair used to have a wig done up like a beehive which she decided to wear to a family wedding.

Her favourite nephew came up behind her at the reception, stuck his hand in her beehive, ruffled it, at the same time saying, “what about ye Aunt ***”.
The wig came clean off in his hand.
Can’t repeat what she called him.
Ah, memories.

Deep and Wide, Give me oil in my lamp, The wise man built his house upon the rock., I'm in the Lord's Army

I haven't heard of those for a good 30 odd years! Good ex Methodist here and I still know all the words and actions!

How about a bit of Jesus loves me and I;m in the lords army (always my favourite as we got to march around while singing!)

Jesus bids us shine
With a pure clear light
Shining like a candle
Something in the night

Dum di dum di dum etc etc

You in your small corner
And I in mine.

50 years since I last sang that at Sunday school, I think.