I LOVE raspberries. They're like a cluster of little red jewels just bursting with summer flavour. We bought a $15 punnet from Flay's Berry Farm for Christmas Day dessert - white chocolate and raspberry cheesecake. I enjoyed having a few more days between finishing work and Christmas Day this year to do my festive cooking. The preparations went pretty well but I still seemed to flounder a bit and ended up visiting a supermarket and or corner dairy a total of 6 times over a three day period which was a bit crazy and disorganised of me. Even the berry farm was visited twice on Christmas Eve due to us realising on the first attempt that they had no eftpos. We were not the only ones to do it either!
Each Christmas I vow and declare I will be more organised the next however I seem to be doomed to a mad rush arrangement where I throw my hands up and announce that it is all part of the fun of!
After Christmas was all over I found myself with a 1/3 of a punnet of raspberries rapidly turning to sludge. There is only so many times you can enjoy them guilt free with cereal in the morning. One must think of something to DO with this leftover luxury item! So I decided to boil it with sugar to preserve it in a jam-like state so that I could bake a favourite slice once I felt the urge to cook again post the Christmas effort. And when all the the other Christmas goodies were gone from fridge, freezer and cake tins. A bit of research - I was sure Mum would have that recipe somewhere. However, Belgium Slice my Mum told me is just the Belgium Biscuit recipe in the Edmond's cookbook made into a slice instead of rolled out and cut into biscuits. It is my best ever Christmas leftover recipe. I also like that during the holidays - once the madness of Christmas is over - one has the time to look for treasures like my little vintage plate. I love it's style-y ripples / tucks / pleats that grace its edges.
PS. Now quite obviously I baked this slice and wrote this post a few weeks ago now. The delay in posting it is due to computer hassles. All fixed now and I am planning to have another go at this Belgium Slice, with the other half of the jam-like mixture and this time I may add 'leftover from Christmas' glace cherries which I see winking at me from the fridge door.
