Vanilla Slice with Passionfruit Icing

With your free bonus - first time making fondant from scratch!

It's been awhile between blog updates, reason being that lately, the fun has just been sucked out of the kitchen for me.  At the moment, we're in the set-up phase of a small business and in the last month, my home kitchen has become registered with our local council and approved by the health department.  I've been working at getting everything established, but the stress has just been incredible at times, and I've resented all the orders I've done as it just felt like each one was eating away into the time I could devote to the business, and, baking for fun and therapy.

The good news is, I'm heading off on Thursday for a few days with some friends to recoup and drink my troubles away while laughing myself stupid.  We've decided to stop pushing ourselves so hard, give ourselves until the New Year to officially launch the business and stop trying to seek new clients until then.  I've gotten to the point where there are just too many balls to juggle and they are starting to fall everywhere.  I don't like pressure, but I hate failure even more so rather than crack it and walk away, effectively wasting all the energy and time (not to mention money) spent so far, I've got to stop putting unrealistic expectations on myself.

So, with this new plan in mind, I've actually felt like baking again for pleasure.  Dal loves my Vanilla Slice, so as a thanks for all he's had to put up with lately, I decided I'd make the one thing he usually has to request several times before getting - Vanilla Slice.

What you will need:-

2 Sheets of Puff Pastry, thawed
600ml Thickened Cream

1 x 100g packet of Vanilla Instant Pudding
1/4 Cup Icing Sugar
1 teaspoon Vanilla

Preheat your oven to around 180 degrees, and place some baking paper on two oven trays.  Place a sheet of Puff Pastry on each tray



with the first sheet, using a fork, prick holes all over it



for the second sheet, take a butter knife and score into 9 roughly even squares, as if drawing a tic-tac-toe grid












taking care not to cut all the way through



 Bake for 8-12 minutes until golden and puffed



take a clean tea towel, place over the baked puff pastry sheets, and, gently pat down






Next, place the Icing sugar, thickened cream, instant pudding and vanilla into your mixing bowl


and beat together for 3-4 minutes until thick and creamy








Spread the mixture over the base piece of cooked puff pastry (this is the one you pricked the holes in earlier)



 


ensuring you spread the mixture almost to the edges, all the way around on the base.

Next, remove the baking paper from the top piece (the one you scored earlier) and place on top



Press down gently with clean hands, being careful  not to lose any filling out the sides!





If you want, you can refrigerate it at this point for an hour or so, cut into squares (using your scored lines as your guide) and dust with a little bit of Icing Sugar.  However, if you want to go all out, Passionfruit Icing on top is what we're going to do next.  Be warned, I've done it the hard way, as instead of using RTR fondant I've made fondant from scratch, but if you don't want to do that, simply microwave around 150-200g of RTR fondant at reduced power for 40 seconds (stop after 20 seconds and stir quickly with a metal spoon) and save yourself the mess and fuss.

Home-made fondant

Surprisingly few ingredients are needed to make this, and, I was pleasantly surprised with how it turned out, however, I made a few mistakes along the way that made this a far messier ordeal that it should be, but I am almost certain next time, with some tweaking, will be much easier!

What you will need:-

2 Cups of White Sugar
1/2 Cup Water
1/4 teaspoon Cream of Tartar

Most recipes call for corn syrup, or Karo syrup, but Cream of Tartar stops the sugar from re-crystallising, the same function the corn/Karo syrup is supposed to perform, and, it works!



First, set up your bench space.  I highly recommend if you have a bench top that is suitable, use that.  One that can cope with high heat, otherwise, you'll have to use a tray lined with baking paper, or, baking paper on top of your bench.  Please just use one piece, don't make the mistake of using two (or any, if you can, its the pits :( ) like I did in my first attempt.  When you've got your clean bench (or heaven forbid baking paper), gently sprinkle it with some water.  Run your hand under the tap, and, flick it a few times



This join in the baking paper quickly became my nemesis, but anyway...



Place the sugar, water and Cream of Tartar in a medium sized saucepan.

Stir over medium high heat until all the sugar has dissolved







Cover and allow to boil for 2-3 minutes


 

Uncover, then continue to cook the sugar syrup, without stirring, until it reaches 240 degrees.  If you don't have a candy thermometer, you can give it a go using the timing it took me, but keep in mind I have a gas stove top.

After 2 minutes of boiling, I checked the temperature

 

and it was struggling to hit 200 degrees.

After a further 4 minutes of boiling it had risen another 25 degrees.



At this point, I turned the heat up slightly, and after two minutes boiling at the higher temperature, we had reached the magical 240 mark



 

Take the sugar syrup off the heat, then pour straight onto your prepared bench


 

Knowing how much trouble this baking paper became, its hard to put these pictures up, I really don't want anyone to copy exactly what I did here.  If you value your sanity, you will find a suitable work bench


 

Leave the syrup for about 2 minutes.  Once it is warm but not hot to the touch, you'll need to get ready to 'work it'.  Tools that can scrape are great, ideal tools for the job are a metal dough scraper or similar, but, seeing as I don't have one of those, improvisation gave me a finishing tool that I use for cakes, and an assortment of knives and spatulas.

So, once the syrup is warm, take your scraper and begin to work the mixture back and forth, then in circles, every now and then scraping it back towards the centre into a big pile.


 

 

At this point, I decided to try to remove as much of the mixture as I could onto the clean and perfect for the job bench underneath.  This required the assistance of my photographer, so I'm missing some photos at this point, but, basically you need to continue to work the mixture, for around 5-10 minutes, until it takes on a slightly creamy look.  It will become stiffer to work with, and a real PITA and sticks to everything.  Moisten your tools with some water, this will help a lot, but don't overdo it.

Once your mixture takes on a creamy colour, moisten your hands and begin to shape it into a ball, scraping into the centre and kneading as you go



 





Continue to work the fondant until it is a smooth ball, free from any lumps.

Place the ball of fondant into a bowl,

add around 2-3 Tablespoons of Passionfruit Pulp, and with a spoon, mix together vigorously, until you have what resembles a sweet smelling glaze.

Pour on top of your Vanilla Slice, spreading all the way to the edges.

Refrigerate for 2 hours, before cutting into slices.  The 'scored' slice marks won't be visible (that cutting guide really only works without this icing topping), so feel free to cut the slices as small or large as you like.

 

Very delish, just like a country Bakery!