Malteser Tiffin

I was away for most of last week. Brilliant week in Berlin, obsessing over the Second World War and the Cold War.  It's always great to have a week off cooking. A whole 5 days of trying out variations on Berlin specialities (and resorting to ice cream). On the other hand, when I come back home the first thing I do is haul the flour out and get busy by the stove. I don't even check the mail. Or unpack.  So, we haul back into the house, I head for the kitchen, ready to make a chocolate Malteser cake (why? I don't know. I saw a picture of it in the in flight magazine and it struck a chord, maybe), and discover that we are Out of Flour. I have, like, 17 different kinds of flour in my cupboard, but have taken my eye off the ball and run out of plain flour. I contemplate making my cake with rye flour. or strong wholemeal. Organic self raising? My shoulders droop. I write it large and clearly on the shopping list, but meanwhile my Grand Plan has been scuppered. And now I have Maltesers on the brain. So I google Maltesers and come across an intriguing and super easy recipe for Malteser tiffin. This is a winner. As a lifelong hater of anything resembling a raisin, tiffin has not been high on my Baking Bucket List. But raisin-free tiffin packed with broken up Maltesers? Yum. I haul out a mega bag of Maltesers (no plain flour, but there are always Maltesers in the cupboard), spend much longer than I need to breaking them up into equally shaped shards (I know. I Need Therapy), and chuck them into my melted chocolate/syrup/butter concoction together with some smashed digestives. Into the fridge it goes, past my dribbling progeny. It's barely solidified before The Family goes in with knives. Is this, one of them enquires between bites, the dictionary definition of making lemonade out of lemons? No, I say. It's about using up the Maltesers before one of you nicks them. Tiffin. Raisin free. Baking impulse temporarily satiated, it's time to unpack.