Dads Favourite Food.

As Dads go, mine's pretty great... Just don't tell him I said so.

Certainly not the most emotional man in the world, he's at his happiest pottering around the garden, chilling out at the beach, or fiddling with one of his many guitars whilst watching TV in his St George boxer shorts (or "slippries" as they're commonly known in our household). He's pretty proud about the fact that he not only knows who The Black Keys are, but has tickets to their Newcastle show.

I get a lot of personality traits from my father, competitiveness, musicality, an aptitude for languages, a need to have my own space and do my own thing. It's not unusual to hear mum say "God, you're so much like your father."

He actively avoids trends, refused to buy a pair of cargo shorts until no-one else was wearing them anymore. He gets a giant kick out of making us kids laugh and will do pretty much anything to achieve this, be it handstands in the kitchen, using silly voices and replacing lyrics of songs with the word "fart" - particularly Coldplay's Scientist (we're simple folk).

And of all the people in my life, I think he took the "gay" thing the best, but then we were always raised to be particularly open minded.

So I thought today I'd share with you my Dad's favourite dessert in the whole world, Vanilla slice made with Sao's. I remember Dad saying that one of the reasons he loves it so much is that his mum used to make it when he was a kid. She wasn't a great cook (and with the task of feeding seven kids every night, can you blame her?) but she could make a mean Vanilla Sao Slice.

Note: I'm not sure how readily available Sao's are outside Australia, though I think pretty much any dry, unsalted cracker should work. Have a quick Google to get an idea of the texture, and if you know something that might work then let me know so I can share!

Ingredients:
4 cups of milk
4 heaped tablespoons of custard powder
4 tablespoons of sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla essence
20 Sao biscuits

Icing:
1 1/2 cups icing sugar
Pulp from 2 passionfruits
1 tsp vanilla extract

Directions:

1. Boil 3 1/2 cups of milk on the stove.
2. Meanwhile, pop the last 1/2 cup of milk into a bowl, add custard powder, sugar and vanilla and mix until combined.
3. Slowly add custard mix to boiling milk until combined and thick.
4. Line a slice pan with 10 sao biscuits, pour on cooled custard, lay the rest of the Saos on top of the custard.
5. Combine icing ingredients in a bowl, pour evenly over slice.
6. Refridgerate until set, then devour.

Haylz x