A Natural History of Lolly Cake
Introduction
When common or garden fruit puffs are embedded in a matrix of biscuit crumbs and condensed milk, rolled in coconut flakes, and allowed to congeal, the result is Lolly Cake, a heavenly delicacy whose ethereal qualities belie its humble ingredients. It tastes good, if you like extremely sweet things with very high fat content, which you do.
To the best of my knowledge, lolly cake is unique to New Zealand. That is to say, I have yet to find any reference to its existence that can’t be traced to a New Zealander.
Pictures of Lolly Cake
What Lolly Cake looks like.
Lolly Cake: close-up.
Fusion cuisine: an experimental lolly cake variant with irish moss and licorice chocolate logs.
How to Make Lolly Cake
Ingredients
- 120 grams of butter
- 250 grams of malt biscuits (one packet)
- 180 grams of Fruit Puffs (one packet)
- 1/2 tin condensed milk
- Some shredded coconut
Gather the ingredients on the kitchen bench.
Place hand over heart, and sing God Defend New Zealand. This is an essential step, and people can tell if you haven’t done it when they taste the lolly cake.
Scronch up the biscuits real good. I like to use a big bowl and one of those potato smooshing tools. Some people have reported good results with putting the biscuits in a plastic bag and smacking it into the bench, but I find the sharp bits of biscuit tend to rip open the bag, leading to unpleasantness and coughing. I like to leave a bit of texture in the biscuit matrix, with most of it dust but some remaining pieces up to about 5 millimetres long. You can also put some cinnamon in at this point, which is nice
Another ingredient
- Some cinnamon
Now warm the butter and condensed milk in the microwave. It doesn’t matter if the butter melts a bit, the point is not to make too much work for yourself mixing it into the biscuits. One time I was eating some lolly cake that I bought from the school canteen and discovered that a large piece I thought was a yellow fruit puff was actually a great big lump of butter that had carelessly been left unmixed. It is better not to trust Bought Lolly Cake.
Chop up the fruit puffs. Not too small. I reckon cutting each one about in half is about right, but it probably wouldn’t matter if they went in whole. If you were in a hurry, and not really taking things seriously.
Put the fruit puffs in the bowl with the scronched biscuits. Pour in the butter and condensed milk. Stir with a wooden spoon. Continue until well mixed.
Spread some coconut out on the bench, and put the mixture on top. Roll it around until it has coconut all over the outside, then form it into a log. Cubes work too.
Place on a tray in the fridge to congeal. This takes a few hours. After that, it’s a good idea to cover the lolly cake with glad wrap to prevent it drying out too much.
The Great Lolly Cake of Alexandra
If ever proof were needed of the essential nobility of the human spirit, and its capacity to produce works of great splendour from the raw materials of the Earth, it is surely to be found in the wondrous achievements of the students of Dunstan High School in Alexandra. For where former centuries have admired the Mammoth Cheese of 1878 or the Big Pineapple of 1971, surely these past feats are matched, if not surpassed, by the 40-foot Lolly Cake of 2005.
The cake was organised by the Dunstan High School World Vision 40 Hr Famine Co-Ordinators Amy Weller, Jenna Lynch and Ysra Naylor. It was lovingly hand-crafted in the school hall on a specially-constructed gantry of desks, metal planks and a double layer of tin foil.
Sold in slices, the 40-Foot Lolly Cake raised around $500 for World Vision, and was justly fêted in the Otago Daily Times. Congratulations to the fine students of Dunstan High School!
I admit to a certain proprietorial pride in this staggering 40-foot lolly cake, for although I was not directly involved in its construction, I did assist in a preliminary consultant fashion. Specifically, I recommended making many little lolly cakes and joining them together, because otherwise you’d need a very big bowl to scronch the biscuits in.
Lolly Cake on the Web
Wikipedia has a lolly cake entry.
You will certainly want to see the special star wars lolly cake fanfic page. It’s a sight to behold, oh my yes.
November 14th, 2006 at 12:01 am
Your use of the “scronch” verb is admirable.
April 4th, 2007 at 4:56 pm
Spread the word of the great lollycake. if only fruit puffs were readily available around the globe as in NZ
May 18th, 2007 at 11:12 am
I love you, lollycake. You complete me.
I’m living in England right now, and have discovered that if you can’t find anything else similar to eskimos or fruit puffs, dolly mixture is an excellent substitute! (You can choose whether or not to take out the jellies).
June 1st, 2007 at 3:10 am
What *is* a fruit puff?
June 7th, 2007 at 12:12 am
i am starving for lolly cake now, and am not even a new zealander… i’m going to improvise…
June 7th, 2007 at 1:52 pm
Ben: Fruit puffs are a confectionary sold in New Zealand - they don’t seem to be widely known elsewhere. They’re made by Nestlé under the brand name Allen’s, which I believe was originally a local company. They come in pastel colours and are somewhat like a marshmallow, but less gelatinous.
June 15th, 2007 at 9:17 am
lolly cake is obviously the superior indigenous food of NZ, far outranking fairy bread and only a little ahead of lift.
June 17th, 2007 at 10:59 am
Yummy yum - I am making lolly cake a week ahead of a birthday - does it freeze well?
June 17th, 2007 at 11:31 am
Petra: I’ve never tried freezing lolly cake, as it usually doesn’t last that long around here. I’d guess that the main issue would be keeping it from drying out, a problem (like so many in this modern world) best solved with tin foil. You’ll also want to give it plenty of time to thaw out to room temperature before the party. Let us know how it goes.
June 20th, 2007 at 10:36 am
I make lolly cake for my husband and his work mates they love it. They asked me to make sour worm lolly cake and it turned out great and they loved it.
Try it!!
July 23rd, 2007 at 7:58 pm
I’m an Aussie who has just returned from a holiday in NZ, where I became aware of the existence of Lolly cake. Have to say that I didn’t try it but just observed it quizzically when seeing it in various cafes and felt a little nauseated when I saw others eating it. Sugar overload!!! Also became aware when in NZ that Kiwis think they invented the pavlova and that Australians stole it for their own. Interesting… what about ANZAC biscuits??
July 23rd, 2007 at 9:34 pm
Lozzy:
What with the sugar and the goodly quantity of butter, it’s probably best to have the occasional non-lolly-cake meal to balance the humours and refresh the palate.
The earliest known published record of the pavlova is from a 1929 New Zealand cookbook, but the famous visit of Anna Pavlova to both countries was in 1926, so it’s possible there’s an earlier version out there to be discovered. I understand there are a bunch of anecdotal theories about who invented it, but they contradict each other, so there’s not much to go on except the actual cookbooks. Given that it’s really just a big meringue with cream and fruit on it, and people have been eating meringues with cream and fruit for a long time, it seems unlikely we’re ever going to identify a single person who came up with the recipe.
The ANZAC biscuit has a similarly murky history. The same historian who investigated the pavlova, Helen Leach, has traced the association of “ANZAC” with rolled oat biscuits back to a 1921 cookbook (again from New Zealand), but the recipe existed before the name. They seem to have developed from Scottish oatcakes in the city of Dunedin, which was originally founded as a Presbyterian colony and retains a strong Scottish influence.
Accusations of Australians stealing various aspects of New Zealand culture take root pretty easily here. Whenever someone or something from New Zealand becomes famous in Australia, New Zealanders are always more likely to care that it started here, and Australians are less likely to see the significance. There’s a similar dynamic between Canada and the USA.
August 13th, 2007 at 9:46 pm
I just googled Fruit Puffs to find the lolly cake recipe because darn it, I can’t find a bag of fruit puffs anywhere - where have they gone??
Thanks for the recipe bro.
August 15th, 2007 at 3:23 pm
hi just wanted to post a comment about “can u freeze lolly cake” yes in fact u can and to keep it moist so it doesnt dry out roll it in glad wrap and let thaw thoroughly before using it. i have done this for many years working in the food industry.
September 27th, 2007 at 7:59 pm
Hi i’v never actually tasted Lolly Cake but it looks gooood!
September 27th, 2007 at 8:00 pm
Hi its me again i am dieing to taste Lolly Cake and im on at 5 past 8 because im doing home work on Lolly Cake!!!
October 9th, 2007 at 7:48 pm
OH MY GOD. I am a kiwi but ive been living in bisbane AU for 7 years now. i have been craving the lollie cake my grandma used to make for me as a child. Why oh why did it take me this long to think to look it up on the net. AHHH DUH. It took me a whole 2 min to find the reciept. Im going strait home from work EARLY to make it lol
October 22nd, 2007 at 2:47 am
I live in the UK and just discovered Fruit foams you can get them at sainsbury’s they are in the Basics range so they’re only about 70p for a 200g packet, they’re a little softer than fruit puffs, but they are better than anything else I found so far to substitute in lolly cake, which is marshmallows and dried fruits.
October 24th, 2007 at 11:01 am
its been 17 years since I left NZ and until now I had forgotton lolly cake. Oh my wait till my kids get home from school tomorrow and try out this delight. Can not wait
October 29th, 2007 at 10:10 pm
back in dunstan i used to think everyone liked me but the last 2 years i have spent at otago university i have come to realise sometimes you have to get off your high horse. That picture of me above shows me in my prime days before i started eating to much food and stopped excersising. Dunstan high school years were the best years of my life and making lollie cake was some of the best times (especially eating it).
November 2nd, 2007 at 9:16 am
Hi, I’ve never made lolly-cake before and was just wondering whether you can substitute the fruit puffs for other sweets?
November 6th, 2007 at 5:49 pm
Gemma: In a traditional lolly cake it’s Fruit Puffs, but there’s no reason why you have to make a traditional one. Just about any kind of soft sweet would work.
November 18th, 2007 at 6:31 am
I have to say it’s not one of my favourites, but as I type my husband is making his birthday lolly cake here in the UK with ingredients sent over from NZ by his parents. Now apparently fruit puffs are no longer available so he’s using Eskimos (the lollies, not people).
December 5th, 2007 at 5:51 pm
I have recently thinking about the Lolly cake phase I went through while working my school holidays in the New World Deli. This was back in the day when we could get in there and make real food that wasn’t pre-mixed, packaged and destroyed in any commercialised way!
I decided for this years christmas gifts all the neighbours would be the proud recipients of a classic Lolly Log. How gutted was I to find an absence of Fruit puffs on the shelf of the local supermarket. I bought a packet of eskimos but was worrying about the texture. I have yet to make the first batch so am pleased to read they work ok as a substitute.
Thanks for the insight!
December 9th, 2007 at 11:27 am
Hi I have been living in Australia for 8 years and have been going to make lolly cake but tried the local malt biscuits and they were tasteless. Took a trip back to N.Z,and stocked up on Griffins original so i can make it for Christmas this year.
I could not find Fruit puffs anywhere but Clinkers in Australia have a similar texture but are chocolate coated. So guess I will have to suck all the chocolate off them first! Just kidding.
Oh the texture is what lolly cake is all about.
December 9th, 2007 at 2:53 pm
Fruit puffs are still available through Bin Inn….. I made some lolly cake just the other day and added sultanas and green and red cherries for my sons xmas party……. they went down a treat and unfortunately I didn’t get to bring any home
December 9th, 2007 at 3:46 pm
I have successfully made Lolly Cake here in Brisbane Australia using Clinkers (basically fruit puffs covered in chocolate). Tastes exactly the same!
December 15th, 2007 at 8:48 pm
Hey!!!
The greatest of greats , the lolly cake! So great in fact we are using it for the bottom tier on our wedding cake this Jan 2008. How long does it keep? If we ice it with normal pettinice , will that seal it sufficiently? We want to make it as soon as possible, don’t want to be up the night before the wedding….. icing a cake!!! How early could we make it?
Kind regards
December 17th, 2007 at 12:24 pm
A friend introduced me to Lolly Cake back in 2000. I hadn’t had it in 5 years, but will be making some tonight!!!!
I have never heard of fruit puffs here in Australia, I know she made it with musk sticks, not just the pink ones but the fruit flavour ones too. I am addicted to gummi bears and wonder what they would be like too…..
December 22nd, 2007 at 9:28 pm
you are all mad ive just come back from nz loaded with lollies the aussis dont no what good lollies taste like i myself personally dont like lollycake but am going to make one just to show off for my aussie family ha ha
December 23rd, 2007 at 8:25 pm
Lolly cake is the best!!! try adding licorice allsorts (use the plain ones, not the ones covered in 100’s and 1000’s) in with the eskimos (since fruit puffs are no longer available in supermarkets) when making lolly cake, they taste great!!!
March 14th, 2008 at 2:38 pm
Clinkers!! You have got to be mad using those as a substitute. They are hard like chalk, so can hardly be described as just like fruit puffs coated in chocolate. This Aussie made her lolly cake using eskimos bought from a specialty chocolate shop. If I did not have a local chocolate store that stocked snack foods from around the world, I would buy some fruit puffs (eskimos or penguins even) on the internet.
April 2nd, 2008 at 3:42 pm
Issac Freeman, you deserve the CBE for services to the realm for posting this.
April 18th, 2008 at 8:54 am
i’m in the UK at the moment, in the refrigeration stage of a half batch made with Rich Tea Biscuits (Asda super budget brand) and a packet of fruit-puff-like lollies i found at a sweet stand at the outdoor market in Frome - will post the results, but it looks promising.
thanks for the recipe
April 18th, 2008 at 12:05 pm
verdict: very very success with the biscuits, fail with the lollies. lollies were generally hard lumps of foam, needed to be much softer. experimenting with the remainder of the packet, we determine that picking out the banana ones and only using those would solve the texture problem, at the expense of variety of flavour.
so:
- Rich Tea Biscuits work just fine as biscuit base
- texture of lollies is very important
(also had interesting discussions with an ex-chef (English bloke) - who suggested the possibility of a savoury version, with some kind of crackers and beef jerky in place of lollies. interesting idea..)
April 19th, 2008 at 3:01 am
victory!
Asda sell something called ‘fruit puffs’ (in the ugly green and white Asda own-brand packaging). bless their multinational Chinese communist virtual slave labour Walmart origin socks.
shall try again..
April 19th, 2008 at 3:04 am
sorry, that’s ‘Foamy Fruits’, not ‘Fruit Puffs’
April 23rd, 2008 at 9:57 pm
Isaac, we meet again on the internet! You’re 4th on the g00gle search for lolly cake, bravo
As it happens I couldn’t find any fruit puffs tonight and resorted to Eskimos as I have in the past - I think they work well.
See you around!
April 24th, 2008 at 12:35 pm
I am originally from NZ and have been living in Australia for a while now and found that musk sticks work really well in place of fruit puffs, just make sure you get the fruity flavoured ones. Lolly Cake is by far the best food every created!!!
April 27th, 2008 at 11:30 pm
HI there, i have tried eskimo pie lollies they are to sweet, and lack that fruity flavour. I sent an email to allens complaining about the removal of there product, and have had no reply.
I reckon we should all bombard them with complaints and emails and get them back on the market. It worked with sun light soap.
Any interest in this matter please respond to this email.
April 29th, 2008 at 5:06 pm
I just had some choice as lolly cake at work, along with some licquorice allsorts. That gives me the idea of perhaps adding some allsorts to a lollycake recipe. Ideally the liquorice part of the allsorts would be removed first.
May 3rd, 2008 at 4:38 pm
What a fantastic web page, I am just about to make some but had to brush up on the recipe as I havn’t made it in years. Us kiwis are definately a unique and very proud to be bunch! After reading all these comments and seeing people have tried chocolate coated lollies, I am now wondering how pineapple lumps would go!!!!
Could you get any more KIWI than that??!!!