It took me right back. If you went to school in the UK in the 60s and 70s you may remember eating cornflake tarts along with other dishes such as; beef stew and dumplings, liver and bacon, instant mash scooped with an ice cream scoop, pilchard salad with beetroot (yuk), yellow, soggy cabbage, fish and chips on Friday, cheese and onion flan, chocolate concrete, rice pudding and tinned prunes, banana custard (making me heave just thinking about it) and giant metal jugs of pink custard (yuk again). This was before the advent of the turkey twizzler and was basically good, honest home-cooked food but for the most part it was pretty grim. Not all of it though, chocolate concrete, a kind of chocolate shortbread was my favourite pudding and these cornflake tarts were pretty good too. As Miss South says they are even better if you use butter rather than marge in the pastry and homemade jam instead of cheap red jam.
After the success of the cornflake tarts I decided to make that other classic of cornflake cuisine, also a childhood favourite - chocolate cornflake crunchies. I like mine made into a big cake and cut in wedges rather than having to faff about with paper cases.
To make one 8 inch cake
Melt slowly in a pan
200g of milk or plain chocolate (or a mixture of both)
50g butter
3 tablespoons of golden syrup
Stir in
200g cornflakes* (Rice Krispies work just as well as cornflakes)
Press into an 8 inch cake or flan tin and refrigerate until set.
* I researched cornflake prices and discovered you could pay anything from 31p to £2.50 for a box of the stuff. Tesco Everyday Value 31p cornflakes it was.
School dinners, did you love or loathe them?
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| October |
