Which is the tastiest Protestant traybake?

[FiddleFaddleDingDong]

NI Protestants are famed for their tray bakes but which is the best traybake of all?

I’m thinking something crunchy and chocolatey, a tiffin like thing. But are there unchocolatey traybakes that I just haven’t been exposed to? Are they keeping all the best recipes to themselves, strictly to be eaten behind closed doors?

And does it get a bit competitive? Does Annie cast aspersions on Doris’ traybaking abilities?

PetitsGateaux my friend has a copy of the NI Dinnerladies cookbook, it’s the holy grail! We are in the presence of greatness, people! curtsies

Is truffles a thing in NI? There’s as many truffles recipes here as there are houses.

It really is such a thing was so surprised it wasn’t on derry girls!

That’s because they’re from the ‘other side’. 😉

Is truffles a thing in NI? There’s as many truffles recipes here as there are houses.

TRUFFLES! Don’t you be coming over here with your high fauluten forrin food!

I was coming back to mention the salad in jelly thing.
My poor granny nearly had heart failure the first time it turned up at her church. Honestly she bent my mums, ear for weeks about it.
Not to mention when somebody bought in a home made pavlova, or pa-la-a-lova as she called it.

@PierreBezukov
CHINESE CHEWS

4oz plain flour
2 eggs
6oz caster sugar
8oz dates
1tsp baking powder
4oz walnuts

Mix dry ingredients
Add dates, walnuts and eggs
170 for 20 mins
Cut when hot into fingers

(Off to add dates and walnuts to shopping list to make these this week)

On Caramel Squares; the odd pioneer Catholic must have ventured into traybake territory because we used to have them at mid morning break in the canteen at my (Catholic) secondary school. However, different people used to make them because sometimes the base would be that perfect digestive biscuity, tawny crumbliness and sometimes it would be more anaemic-looking, White and soggy.

My mum is pals with her Protestant neighbour (they moved from Belfast to rural County Down after I left to come to England). Said neighbour co-opted my mum into the WI!!! So I am confident I can get my hands on a hard copy of the NI WI cookbook...

Ah see, my mum is a lapsed Catholic who joined a Methodist church in her late thirties. Maybe this is why I had to put up with bloody coconut tartlets, apple tart and Victoria sandwich. NO TRAY BAKES! We had to rely on our local home bakery for the odd fifteen or currant square. I was deprived!

Making up for it now though😀

I'm ridiculously homesick reading this thread. Not a traybake to be found 😒

Ah now, pavlova is a Catholic thing. My mother, Sil’s cousins, friends that make them are all nice decent, god loving catholic’s. Blessed are all the saints. 😇

Pavlova is a bit flamboyant for a presbyterian so clearly an RC thing.

isabellerossignol, if you add a dollop of coleslaw to that salad plate you've got very catholic, Midlands MIL's Sunday supper.

Pavlova is a bit flamboyant for a presbyterian so clearly an RC thing.

Good point. You’ve obviously seen inside a chapel. 😁

Pavlova is a bit flamboyant for a presbyterian so clearly an RC thing.

Hey, my mum loved a good pavlova! We were a very liberal Presbyterian congregation though. Most of the church ladies' specialties were desserts with eye-watering amounts of booze in.

Also, by law it must be pronounced "pavalova".

Pavalova

I was an adult before I realised it was not Pavalova.

my granny used to serve it along with ox tongue and iceberg lettuce which was to be dipped in a bowl of salt!

Ahh, tongue salad. I used to ask my granny specially for the tongue. My 6 year old self loved it. My dad ( they were his parents,my grand father an elder in the presbyterian church - my mum was from a Jewish background) would politely decline ( can't think why) and go for the neatly rolled slice of ham. And the sliced pickled beetroot.

And bread and butter with fresh butter. My granny would say ' it's fresh butter'

My parent's marriage wasn't a 'mixed marriage' - it was downright exotic.

Will post a couple of pages from this key text

From the cold cooking section

Enjoy!

A mystery solved. My pal at schools mum was from Belfast and sent traybakes that were probably one of the best things about my childhood. 30 kids in the class and she sent enough for 3 each for a week, does that sound about right?
I must ask her for the recipes, now I know it’s a heritage thing not a family secret .
I’m from Edinburgh so can safety assume Irish ancestry.

It's not pavAlova??! Mind blown.

OMG, the CHRISTMAS SHLOER.

The treat of the year. It went alongside my grandma's coffee cake which was more cream than cake.

Clearly a RC thing

If you listen carefully you'll hear my granny spinnng in her grave.

PILs- formerly closed, now slightly more open Brethren, are v big on pavlova. Compulsory for any fancy meal. I loathe it but dh, who otherwise eats nothing sweet, adores it.