Love them or hate them, there’s no denying the vanilla slice is an Australian baking staple. In this edition of Baking Business we take a deep dive into the history of the iconic item, and the competition that helped bring it to the nation’s attention.

It was back in 1998 that the then Victorian premier Jeff Kennett made a bold statement: he had discovered the best vanilla slice, in his opinion, at Mallee Bakery in the small regional Victorian of Ouyen.

So impacted was he by the discovery that by July of that year Mr Kennett made an announcement that the inaugural The Great Vanilla Slice Triumph competition would be held in the town later that year.

According to Mr Kennet, the competition would be geared at determining the best vanilla slice and the best vanilla slice baker in the country.

“This important Australian culinary delicacy has tantalised Australians since white settlement,” Mr Kennett said in the statement.

“The pursuit of the best vanilla slice and the best vanilla slice baker in Australia should be of great national interest.”

The origins of the vanilla slice

However, it’s important to note the custard-filled delight did not in fact originate in Australia, with numerous variations readily found across Europe and the United States.

In fact, the earliest mention of the popular dessert can be found in a French cookbook from 1651, where it’s listed as a gateau with frangipane.

The classic French version – mille-feuille, which translates to one thousand leaves – is created by repeatedly folding a thin sheet of butter wrapped inside a dough covering. When put in the oven the butter melts and the water content in turn creates steam, which separates the dough to create the countless crunchy layers. Also unlike the Australian version, the mille-feuille consists of three sheets of puff pastry and 1cm of crème patisserie in between them.

Other variations of the vanilla slice include the kremowka from Poland, while in the US there’s the Napoleon, in Croatia there is the kremšnite and in Serbia there’s the krempita. In Hungary there’s even a caramel-covered version called szegedinertorte.

With such universal appeal, it’s almost impossible to definitively work out where the vanilla slice’s true origins are from.

Jason and Kelly Spencer

Creating a national icon

The Macquarie Dictionary blog suggests the Australian moniker “snot block” first originated in central Victoria, although there are other lesser known nicknames include “snot brick”, “phlegm cake”, and “pus pie”.

Dubious names aside, the popularity of the vanilla slice has only grown since Mr Kennett’s creation of the Great Vanilla Slice Triumph competition.

His enthusiasm for the competition saw Mr Kennett continue to act as a guest judge up until 2005, and the 2016 competition reportedly saw more than 18,000 vanilla slices consumed over the course of the weekend.

In 2011 Ouyen awarded the rights to the competition to Merbein, another town in the Sunraysia region, where it has since remained.

Since then, The Great Vanilla Slice Triumph competition has continued to grow in both popularity and also as a symbol of baking excellence, with the winner touted as being the creator of the nation’s best vanilla slice.

2024 The Great Vanilla Slice Triumph winner Jason Spencer from Banana Boogie Bakery said it was hard to say why the vanilla slice had remained so popular over the years.

“It is a bit of an icon, but I’m not sure why. [Essentially] it’s a French dessert that’s kind of been bastardised and turned into an Australian version,” he said.

“When we first bought the bakery in 2015, one of the first competitions we entered was the 2016 Vanilla Slice Triumph competition in Merbein. We managed to get second in everything we entered there and it just went viral. Our bakery became known as the ‘vanilla slice bakery’ in Adelaide.”

For the Banana Boogie team the win was eight years in the making, with small recipe tweaks being implemented each year. This year, Jason said, he and the team sat down and went through the previous year’s results and double checked each element of feedback had been implemented.

However, Jason said creating an excellent vanilla slice actually came down to making the smaller 1 or 2 per cent changes.

“It’s really just the little things, like how we cut the vanilla slices and how we measure them to make sure all 10 pieces we enter are identical,” he said.

“For the pastry and the custard and the icing, they’re all the same every year. It’s those little things that get you those extra points.

“It’s the same with all the competitions though. You get your judges feedback and you find out what they want or what they’re looking for, and that’s what’s going to make your product better.”

Matt Aylett

Last year’s The Great Vanilla Slice Triumph winner Matt Aylett from North End Bakehouse agreed with this, saying it was often the specifics that sometimes mattered the most.

When Matt first did his apprenticeship 18 years ago, the vanilla slice was just another product he had to make. Then, after entering his first competition he got hooked.

“I worked hard at perfecting it over the years and then, once we bought this bakery, it was my goal to get that [The Great Vanilla Slice Triumph] award,” he said.

“There’s not a lot you can change when it comes to the recipe. But getting the recipe and consistency right is something we’ve always tried to perfect; making it light and fluffy and creamy, and obviously that you can bite through it without having it oozing and ending up on your lap. But we haven’t even worried about the flavour and taste of it in recent times. We know that’s already good.

“But it’s just getting that perfection each time. Making sure all of your lines perfectly straight, up and down, front to back, left to right. Make sure everything’s perfect and there are no crumbs leftover.”

Matt also noted that in the past three or four years it seemed the baking industry as a whole had really stepped up its game when it came to competitions like The Great Vanilla Slice Triumph, an idea that Jason agreed with.

“You win these things because you’re making a better product than everyone else, and it just takes everyone else wanting to have that hunger to win,” he said.

“It seems like people are wanting to enter more competitions because they can see the value in entering now.”