Canberra squares

Not sure why this recipe has this name, maybe its because the coconut layer looks like ice and Canberra gets so cold in the winter, haha. I'm sure there would be a story behind it but Grandma's books gave no hint of it. I must make a note to ask her about it.

This is a simple recipe and produces a yummy soft slice but it took me a little while to work out how to get the mixture to spread across the tin. Eventually I got it done but the only way I manged it was to make sure I was working with damp hands and then get a small portion of the the dough, flatten it with my hands and lay it in the tin. The dough is so soft that trying to spread it with a spoon just doesn't work. In the future I would probably make a double mix of the dough so that I didn't have to try and get the mix so thin to get it across the tin, that might make it easier and I don't think it would affect the balance of flavours between the dough and the coconut filling.

Dough:

½ cup butter or margarine

1 cup brown sugar

1 egg

1 ½ cups S.R Flour

1 heaped tablespoon cocoa

Filling: 

boil for a few minutes. Leave to cool

1 ½ cups coconut

2 tablespoons icing sugar

1 cup milk

Method: 

Beat butter and sugar, add egg. Sift flour and cocoa together, add & mix to a soft dough. Put half of mixture into a tray 12 x 9in, smooth. Cover with cooled filling. Top with rest of mixture, bake in moderate oven for 30 mins. Ice with chocolate icing. Cut into squares.