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There are a few edible ingredients of which I'm a little wary.  When I was running through them in my head, I realised a few have very similar consistencies - cream of anything tinned soups, custard in a carton, condensed milk....  I'm sure I have probably consumed condensed milk in more things than I'm readily aware of, but I don't believe I have ever added it to anything before.

When I opened the can and it started to ooze out onto my fingers I did squeal a little and the smell was familiar.  It's not the smell of one of my favourite things, quite a sicky smell if you ask me.

My mum has always baked her own bread and I grew up with homemade cakes and biscuits of all kinds, but not slice.  I think of slice as an Australian thing.  That may not be accurate, but for me, that's how I think of them.  My MIL Helen has a very broad slice repertoire, a slice for every occasion even.  Perhaps for that reason it has never occurred to me to make a slice because Helen makes such good ones.

Today I decided to make an Australian classic - the lemon slice.  I did panic a little when I called said MIL from the supermarket and she wasn't home.  There were choices - Marie or Granita biscuits?  I faced the shelf to sweetened reduced milk or regular condensed.  With MIL not answering I went with this recipe.

These taste good, but they're not Helen's.  I went with Granitas and condensed milk, but they're very different - that's the problem when you're so sold on someone's version of something, nothing matches up.  My girls LOVE my bolognaise sauce, but on the couple of occasions my mum's made it she's had feedback "It's nice, but not as good as mum's".  I asked the girls "Who do you think taught me to make spaghetti sauce?"  but still, it's never the same.

I need to get Helen's recipes and her little tricks for her fridge lemon slice (as above), her baked lemon slice, her chocolate slice, her apricot and coconut slice, there's a sour cream and apple slice that makes an occasional appearance, and that's just for starters.