Copha

I just took a FunTrivia quiz about Australian Christmases.  I did very well, by the way. I got 9 out of 10 right, which is unusual. I usually get more wrong. Sometimes I get most of them wrong...like when it comes to lyrics of Australian music from the 1970's.

Anyway, one of the questions was about something called White Christmas. I didn't quite know the answer to that one, but I guessed it correctly.

It's a dessert.  

It looks really good to me.  

It's made out of Rice Krispies (Bubbles), Fruitcake cherries, milk powder, raisins, dried apricots, desiccated coconut, icing sugar, and something called Copha. Here's a recipe.  

Lord Wiki says I'm not likely to find this Copha stuff in America. It's produced only in Australia. However, he does say other countries have it, but with a different name.  

It's vegetable shortening made from coconut oil, and it's full of saturated fat. So it's not very healthy.

I still want some. I mean I don't want to eat a chunk of Copha. But I would like to eat something made from it.

I'm kind of surprised I've never heard of this before.

Amazon has a picture of Copha, though they don't have it in stock right now.  It's very cute. There's some kind of baked good wearing a party hat. He looks friendly, but maybe the type of friendly that's out of control. He's like the kid your child invites to the birthday party and you, as a parent, secretly hope doesn't show up.  But then you feel guilty because he's not a bad kid. He's just a bit too energetic and is high maintenance.  

He's also the kid who has to be taken to the emergency room because he stuck something in his ear—maybe a candied cherry from his piece of white Christmas.

Anyway, I'm a bit perplexed that this Copha package looks entirely new to me. We went to many grocery stores in Australia, and you'd think I'd remember encountering this.  

Holy crap. I just looked at Simply Oz (the Aussie food store in America) and they have it!  How did I not see this before?  It's crazy.

Then again, I don't often look at baking supplies. I usually look at chocolate, lollies, biscuits, crackers, etc.  Stuff that's already made...in a factory.

When the weather gets cooler here, maybe I'll order some Copha.  

The Copha website has recipes.  I think the thing it's most known for is not White Christmas, but Chocolate Crackles. It seems you find them at birthday parties.  I think I'd much prefer that to Fairy Bread.  Though I do like LOOKING at fairy bread. I'm just not so keen on eating it.  

There are various websites online that provide recipes for Chocolate Crackles without Copha.  This one uses butter and marshmallow instead.  So it's kind of more like an American Rice Krispie treat.  

And here's a White Christmas recipe without Copha. They use white chocolate instead.  

Yeah. It turns out some Australians don't like Copha.  

I'm thinking that though I've never heard of Copha before today, I've probably eaten something that has it as an ingredient.  Somewhere along the line.  We do eat a lot of treats when we're in Australia.