After this week waxing lyrical (as much as I ever do) about how I don’t really have a cook’s habit of making slices, I am about to share another slice recipe!  To be fair, this one has a slight identity crisis – in North America this would probably be close to a brownie, and it eats almost like a chewy cookie, but it also has something more of a more cake-ish texture even though it is made with just plain flour and no raising agent.

In Advent, the important thing is the raisins.  Years ago, they were always a ‘high days and holidays’ ingredient due to the much higher price than sultanas or currants (at least here in Oz).  Funnily enough, we are back there – for the last several years in Oz, raisins have typically been twice the price of sultanas, on a par with a halfway decent cut of red meat.  So choosing this to make today is me celebrating a recent win at the supermarket – raisins at half price, one day only!  Fair warning, though, a whole block of dark cooking chocolate gave its life to bring us this TGIF treat (seriously, when are people going to get over the idea of drop-dead December deadlines, pretending that starting a new project now is a good idea when half the world and his mate are already in holiday mode??? And who needs papers submitted on 22 December that won’t keep until after Christmas???)