Ginger Crunch Wars

Not to be mistaken for ginger slice wars, as that was the precipitating purchase.

The restaurant next door to our work sells a lovely looking what-they-call ginger crunch, which is disappointingly only a ginger slice as there is no crunch to be found.

After reminiscing that nothing quite sets off the beautiful tooth-sinking heated loveliness that is a ginger topping like a thin base full of CRUNCH we've now come down to the rather-harder-than-it-first-appeared task of recreating the fond remembered ginger crunch of our oft-lamented childhood.

And when I say WE, my contribution so far has been to taste test end results.

But I'm not a freeloader (for ever) so this weekend I'm putting my own baking skills to the test to try to magic up a memory out of a few staple kitchen ingredients.

First, and most important, Ginger. Tick. I checked that last night just in case the memory I had of it being in the cupboard was out of place by a few years and missing in between was a snapshot of every time I'd opened the cupboard to see an empty slot.

I've made that mistake before in the long-ago gingerbread wars, and I'm not going to make it again.

Flour. Tick.

Icing Sugar. Tick.

Normal Sugar. Tick.

Coconut Sugar, Palm Sugar, Brown Sugar. Tick. Tick. Tick. In case I wake up tomorrow channeling a fancy-arse pastry chef vibe. I even have Splenda brown sugar in case I wake up feeling fat, but not so fat that I won't immediately commence baking.

Butter. Tick. But also tossing up whether the last of the exquisite cocoa butter I have in the back of the cupboard should be broken out for its final supper.

Golden Syrup. Cross. I'm thinking of livening up proceedings with a dash of molasses in glucose syrup instead.

Baking Powder. Tick. Final ingredient. I'm set.

Now, I'm thinking of taking the standard recipe (still tossing up between Chelsea Sugar and Edmonds Cookbook) and baking the base twice in a nice biscotti twist for extra, extra crunch.

However, I'm also thinking of how nice it would be to have an extra hour sleep-in tomorrow since my darling woke me up at 7.14am this morning in order to commence grocery shopping.

No, I don't know why either. I blame the parents.