Aotearoa and Australia · Volume 04, The Roast, the Dairy and the Corner Shop
Lolly cake
New Zealand
An illustration of the dish, not a photograph of it cooked.
- Time
- Hands on 20 minutes · Waiting 4 hours
- Researched
- 8 sources cited
- Reviewed
- Not yet reviewed from inside the tradition
- Cooked
- Not yet cooked and reported
Wikipedia states plainly that "the exact origins of lolly cake are unknown," though it was apparently eaten in the 1940s and became commonly available from supermarkets only in the 1960s; no credible origin story survives checking beyond this, and none is invented here.
As tradition built it
Makes 1 log, about 12 slices. About 20 minutes, plus 4 hours chilling.
Ingredients
- 1 packet (approx. 190g) Eskimo lollies, broken by hand
- 1 packet (approx. 250g) malt biscuits, crushed to a rough crumb
- 120g butter
- ½ can sweetened condensed milk
- 2 cups desiccated coconut, for rolling
Method
- Melt the butter and condensed milk together gently.
- Combine with the crushed biscuits and broken lollies.
- Form into a log and roll in desiccated coconut.
- Chill for 4 hours, then slice.
What a modern chef changes
A toasted coconut coat and a tempered chocolate core
This chapter's own technique work.
Method
- Toast the desiccated coconut before rolling, adding a depth the traditional raw coating does not have.
- Set the log around a thin core of tempered dark chocolate, giving a cross-section contrast the plain traditional log does not offer.
- Slice thinner and serve chilled rather than at room temperature, treating the dish as a petit-four rather than a slab.
Notes
No chef-driven precedent for an elevated lolly cake was found anywhere in this research; this is the chapter's own technique work.