Matt Preston: The Australian vanilla slices not on French La Liste ranking of world’s best pastries

They may be a go-to for bakery lovers with a sweet tooth, but Banana Boogie’s vanilla slice is a victim of some old-school foodie snobbery by the French, says Matt Preston.

Astrid Bone from Banana Boogie Bakery with a vanilla slice. Picture: Keryn Stevens

Have the French snubbed two of Australia’s award-winning vanilla slices?

That’s the question posed by celebrity food critic Matt Preston, who has uncovered South Australia’s Banana Boogie Bakery – current holder of the title of Australia’s Best Vanilla Slice – is one of two “glaringly obvious omissions” from the La Liste ranking of the world’s best, despite 31 pastry shops and bakeries in NSW and 24 in Victoria making the cut.

The other is North End Bakehouse in Victoria’s Shepparton, which won Best Vanilla Slice for the second consecutive year at the Baking Association of Australia’s 2024 Baking Show.

“It’s like some old-school foodie snobbery, where a ‘snot block’ only has value if it’s a French mille-feuille or Italian millefoglie,” Preston says.

Banana Boogie Bakery in Belair, South Australia is home to one of the best vanilla slices in Australia ... but isn’t good enough to make the French La Liste ranking of the world’s best pastries. Picture: Keryn Stevens

Perhaps, he muses, the oversight is due to the bizarre thing Banana Boogie does to their slice.

“I’ve uncovered (they are) are doing something shocking – and some might even say disgusting – with it,” Preston says, revealing the Belair bakery also offers the baked treat as a deep fried option.

“But Jason Spencer, who runs the bakery, tells me “you’ve got your deep-fried ice cream so we thought ‘why not a battered vanilla slice?’.”

After a series of initial disasters with vanilla slices ending up an ugly sludge at the bottom of their deep fryer, Banana Boogie hit on deep-chilling the slice before frying, embedding crushed cornflakes in the pancake batter they use for added crunch.

It’s the impact on the custard from deep frying, however, that really wows his customers.

“We make our vanilla slices with a custard that’s creamy, not hard, and boiled so when it’s warmed the custard really melts in your mouth.”

Has the vanilla slice turned to jelly?

Whether we’re talking about Lune’s expansion from Melbourne into Brisbane and Sydney; or the success of the patisserie from Christian Jacques in Brisbane’s Kangaroo Point, Prove in Adelaide or Alchemy Bakehouse in the Victorian surf town of Ocean Grove, there seems to be an obsession with Australian pastry.

I was discussing the above ommission of two Australian bakeries with award-winning vanilla slices this with a bloke who makes 10,000 of the slices a month in his factory.

He, too, was appalled, but also suggested that, while the vanilla slice has long held a nostalgic place deep in the hearts of Australians, its hold might be starting to slip.

This stopped me in my tracks. What bakery item could be threatening the pre-eminence of the vanilla slice in the bakery and cafe cold cases across this wide brown land? The underrated neenish tart? The chocolate-topped caramel slice? The apple turnover or the strudel?

Nope, these aren’t even in his top-three sellers. Now, the vanilla slice and the lemon slice are his second- and third-biggest sellers. And outselling the two combined is another slice that is largely unknown outside Australasia, and has a lurid reputation to match its colour.

It’s the jelly slice.

The jelly slice offers three distinct layers, with raspberry tops the most popular.

So, is the jelly slice to replace the vanilla slice as Australia’s favourite bakery treat? And if so, why? Is it the acidity of the raspberry jelly against the creamy, lemon-scented condensed milk layer? Is it the elusive waft of cinnamon in the crushed biscuit base? Or is it the growing trend of doubling the height of the jelly layer, for more impact? For me, it was the perfect excuse to head to a selection of bakeries and try a few, because I wasn’t convinced.

I found that what the jelly slice offers is three distinct layers, each with very different but complementary and contrasting textures. While the usual slab of vanilla slice can overwhelm you with custard with pastry, the jelly slice shifts in balance with every bite …

I feel a seismic shift in the cosmos at this thought.

So next time I walk past a bakery window, I know where my eye will be drawn amongst that ranked display of warm browns and fluffy creams and custards.

That brilliant shimmer of red leaps out at you – apparently it’s only the raspberry jelly ones that sell – and demands you order it.

If you disagree that the jelly slice is the future please prove me wrong.

Does the vanilla slice still rule for you? Comment below.