It’s important to record how and what we eat, as a criterion of social history, reflecting us back at ourselves mouthful by mouthful. For example, when I first wrote about this salted caramel slice thirteen years ago in 2011, I said:

“There are many things in life to be afraid of. But, being a person who tends rapidly towards non-endearingly sweaty anxiety I can say this with confidence: adding salt to your caramel slice — or your caramel anything — should not be on that list of things you fear.”

Which is, in the fullness of hindsight, kind of hilarious. Salted caramel is so utterly normal now to the point of prosaic that it’s easily the default and I’m surprised when the word ‘caramel’ appears without its salted qualifier. It’s like walking in on someone in a state of half-dress — where’s its pants?

It has never been a more timely time to glance to the past, foodwise, since this very food blog, hungryandfrozen.com, turned seventeen years old on Monday — something that’s worth pausing to fête and panegyrise, I think! This blog predates and has outlived many things; it’s my longest commitment, it remembers things I don’t, it’s extremely localised social history (though who among us can’t fondly reminisce, collectively, about cupcakes, all-bacon everything, the rise of bowls, kale, pickles, pretzels, and — yes — salted caramel). Everything intelligent I’ve ever wanted to say about this blog and its longevity I’ve already said (not last year though, like a deadbeat dad I forgot the blog’s birthday altogether) and the main point is, I love this blog, I love writing it, and I will never, ever stop, and presumably one day October 14 will be marked on Wikipedia as the now-famous day it all started, it’s certainly marked permanently in the Wikipedia of my heart (again, except for last year when I forgot.)

Anyway — back to the future of the past for this pistachio coffee salted caramel slice, based on an old Cuisine magazine recipe I remade for the first time in 13 years and augmented with a hint of instant espresso, a Jackson Pollocking of caramelised white chocolate, and a bewelled scattering of pistachios, split in twain to reveal their green bellies. It (a) was so rapturously received by all who tried it, including me and (b) felt like enough time had passed and just enough variation had transpired that I can confidently re-present it to you in recipe form.

Caramel slice, salted or otherwise kinda needs no introduction — it’s the culinary epitome of playing life on easy mode — but this one nonetheless exerts itself into the realm of exceptional. From the bottom up, the spry addition of cornmeal lends granular sweetness, an odd sophistication, and a softly dense grittiness. The caramel layer: thin, double-cooked both in the pan and under the oven’s heat, and rich with throat-peppering golden syrup, already somehow suggests coffee undertones through its layered, heady sweetness — not unlike the scent-clouded air that surrounds coffee roasters — but then you add the actual coffee and it gives an almost-savoury, near-smokiness — exquisite. And of course, the salt: like putting on reading glasses or switching a video from 480p to 4k, the caramel becomes sharpened, crisper, more visible, more itself when the salt is around.

You’d think, given we’ve covered three kinds of sugar already, that by the time you get to the viscous splattering of caramelised white chocolate it would be too much, too rich, too tooth-dissolving. Think again! The textural diversion, the beguiling auxiliary vanilla-butterscotchiness (though regular white chocolate works fine if it’s all you can find) — and clinging to it, the buttery, fragrant pistachios, echoing the chocolate with their muted crunch. I made it once for a coworker who helped me with a big project, twice to bring to a spring solstice picnic with my writing group, and thrice for the sheer joy of its existence (and I brought some of that batch to the next instalment of writing group.) Though I could happily go back to the initial iteration — caramel, salt, no further distractions — this is the version for today, for my record of the present moment. Perhaps in another thirteen years I’ll blog about an even more outlandish version, at present I’m not sure how it could be improved. Salted caramel! It might be normal now, but it will always taste like it’s just been invented.

If you are in the mood for a full tasting flight exploration of caramel in the kitchen I also recommend my Vegan Salted Caramel Ice Cream; my Chocolate Caramel Rice Bubble Slice and these Three-ingredient Chocolate Caramel Hearts.

Pistachio coffee salted caramel slice

Salted caramel forever! I’ve taken an already excellent recipe and added a little caramelised white chocolate, some creamy pistachios and a deep-toned splash of coffee, somehow it improved upon perfection. Adapted from a recipe in Cuisine magazine.

• 150g butter
• 120g brown sugar
• 100g flour
• 100g fine cornmeal
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 x 395g can sweetened condensed milk
• 3 tablespoons golden syrup
• 1 teaspoon instant espresso powder
• 2 teaspoons flaky sea salt
• 100g caramelised white chocolate (or regular white chocolate)
• 40g shelled pistachios

1: Set your oven to 180C/350F and line a 20cm (21cm at a pinch) square caketin with baking paper.

2: Melt 120g of the butter in a saucepan, then remove the pan from the heat, spatula the melted butter into a mixing bowl, and stir in the 120g brown sugar, 100g each of flour and fine cornmeal, and the teaspoon of baking powder.

3: Tip this damp, sandy mixture into the lined cake tin and press it down into an even layer with the back of a spoon. Bake for 11 minutes.

4: Meanwhile — the 11 minutes should be just the right amount of time to do this — melt the remaining 30g butter, in the same, unwashed pan from moments before is fine, then spatula in the entire tin of sweetened condensed milk and the three tablespoons of golden syrup. Stir over a low heat for five minutes — the mixture will reduce down slightly and appear a little thickened.

5: Remove the pan from the heat. Mix the teaspoon of instant espresso powder with a splash of water from the tap — about a teaspoon, too — and stir it into the condensed milk mixture along with a teaspoon of the flaky sea salt. Spread this mixture in a thin, even layer over the baked base and return to the oven for another 11 minutes.

6: Once the slice has cooled, melt the 100g caramelised white chocolate however you usually would, then drizzle it from a spoon onto the caramel slice, haphazardly. Roughly chop the 40g shelled pistachios and disperse them over the still-wet chocolate, then scatter over the remaining teaspoon of flaky sea salt, or as much of it as feels right to you. Place the slice in the fridge to set the chocolate, then slice into squares and store in an airtight container back in the fridge.

If you slice it four by five as I do you’ll get 20 slices, but the mathematics and proportions are up to you. This keeps well for at least a week in the fridge but — it’s cliche but true — it will not last that long.

Note: Instant espresso coffee is best here, flavour-wise, and though less prevalent, is sold alongside the regular instant coffee in the supermarket. Sometimes when I’ve made this, the condensed milk mixture appears to have turned a little grainy in the saucepan — it will come right, texture-wise, in the oven.

music lately:

If Ever I Would Leave You by Jordan Donica from the 2023 revival of Camelot, with tenors taking over Broadway’s baritone roles with the relentlessness of the marching broomsticks in The Sorcerer’s Apprentice it’s heartening to hear rich, mellifluous, Robert Goulet-esque vocals ring out once more; Donica’s voice is so beautiful that it should stand alone without comparison but — I just enjoy any opportunity to bring up Robert Goulet in an approbatory fashion.

Two Rivers by my beloved Meat Puppets, it’s somehow energetically lethargic in that way they were so good at dichotomy-ing; and it has this kind of lemonade-bubble, gulls-squalling-at-dusk guitar effect rippling through it which you might otherwise associate with new age music played exclusively in shops trying to sell you crystals and essential oils; as you can imagine I know confidently of which I speak. Mind you, so does the band, you can also hear this sound used in, say, this live recording of Up on the Sun.

Posing for Cars by Japanese Breakfast…………wow. But also, wow?

PS: Again I’m bringing your attention to ReliefAid’s Gaza Appeal. With the ongoing annihilation of people in Gaza, and those in power either looking away or actively empowering it, there are still small ways to do more than nothing — this is one of them.