Sugar and Sunshine!

If you ever wanted a quick pick-me-up with an injection of sugar and sunshine, then this is the cookie for you. This recipe has been adapted from Best Food, an Australian Women's Weekly cookbook, which was given to me by a fellow foodie, Marie, who can be found at her own blog, Marie's Muses.



The bars have a very intense flavour of crystallized ginger followed up by a crunch of toasted macadamia nuts. This is definitely one for the grown-ups!

Macademia and Ginger Fingers
12 - 16 bars/squares.

For the base:
125 g unsalted butter, softened
55 g caster sugar
150 g self-raising flour
1 teaspoon ground ginger

For the topping:
90 g unsalted butter, chopped
2 tablespoons golden syrup
120 g icing sugar
150 g macadamias, toasted and coarsely chopped
50 g finely chopped crystallized ginger

Preheat oven to 350ºF. Line a 9"x9" brownie pan with baking parchment, extending the paper just above the edges of the pan.

Beat the butter and sugar in a bowl with an electric mixer until light and fluffy. Add the flour and ground ginger; beat on low speed until just combined.

Spread evenly into prepared pan and bake for about 10-15 minutes or until lightly browned. Cool in pan.

For topping - combine butter, golden syrup and icing sugar in a small saucepan and stir over a medium heat until mixture is smooth, about 5 minutes. Stir in nuts and finely chopped crystallized ginger.

Spread hot macadamia topping evenly over cooled base. Return to oven and bake for about 10 minutes - the nuts should be just turning brown, keep an eye on them.

Cool in pan and then cut into fingers or squares.

TIP: recipe says to make sure the base is cooled to room temperature before spreading the hot nut/ginger topping over.

(Printable Recipe)
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