Slices of the West Coast

There are many lovely gardens on the West Coast of the South Island (of which more later) but I must admit that the first thing that caught my eye when I was over there last week was not the colours of garden flowers but rather the colours of these classic Kiwi slices or squares in the window of a Greymouth bakery. 

Later that day, in King Dick's cafe at the Shantytown Heritage Park, I shared the magnificent Chocolate Peppermint Slice below with a friend. A rich treat, with a combination of flavours which seems to be pleasing to the Kiwi palate but not the European one (if my Continental friends are anything to go by), Chocolate Peppermint Slice recipes are many and varied and still popular. This recipe, given away by a supermarket chain, is a nice simple one. 

A few days later we were in Reefton, at the Broadway Tea Rooms and Bakery, where the chief (and welcome) concession to contemporary urban tastes is the excellent coffee now served there. The cakes are very traditional, and included these two slices.

I feel certain that the local knitter of this amazing outfit, photographed in the nearby Blacks Point Museum, was also a great baker of such slices. 

Yet not all the slices I tasted on the Coast were retro Kiwi classics. If you are ever in Westport on a Saturday morning do head for the little market in front of the municipal chambers, where a German baker has an irresistible array of fruit and cream filled slices. These include a slice I have never seen before – Lambada Cake. You can find lots of recipes for it on the web (e.g. at 11 Lambadaschnitte Rezepte) but your German had better be good because this is a real German slice and the recipes are all in German. This slice seems to have a Brazilian name because it contains tropical fruit juices, not because it dances. The Westport baker was also selling a German classic, Bee Sting Cake, which seems to have become (deservedly) popular in the US, in South Africa, and – in Reefton, where it was also for sale at the Broadway Tea Rooms. 

 Lambada Slice is on the left