In honour of Sarah Gailey being pleasantly baffled by Australian snack foods, it's time for a thread of classic Kiwi baked goods.

Nobody does baking like the South Island, and it's time for my international followers to learn themselves some new foods.

We must begin with lolly cake: a log made of malt, shredded coconut, and marshmallows. If an NZ tearoom does not have lolly cake, it is a bad tearoom.

Afghan Biscuits are named after ???somethingsomethingworldwar1???. They're chocolate biscuits made with cornflakes and topped with walnuts. They are the shit.

The lamington is a sponge cake covered in chocolate (or raspberry) and shredded coconut. A bad lamington is a dry horrible mess, but a good lamington is heaven.

Caramel Slice is, I believe, brought to NZ by Scottish settlers. It's shortbread with caramel and chocolate. Nothing fancy, but incredibly sweet and rich. If it's not cut into an isosceles triangle, somebody fucked up.

Louise Cake is a square with raspberry jam, topped with meringue

Speaking of meringue, this is a pavolva. Australia and New Zealand both claim ownership, but the Australians forget that we traded them Split Enz in exchange for full pav ownership

It's not all sweet things! A proper Kiwi sausage roll is one of the world's greatest snack foods. It's highly portable meatbread. True Kiwis open up the pastry just a tiny bit and fill that motherfucker up with tomato sauce.

A new challenger appears! Immigrants from South Asia have left an indelible mark on NZ cuisine, and this beauty is a result: the butter chicken pie. Almost impossible to get in the afternoon, because they sell out faster than almost any other food.

(trust me: my first real job was in a pie shop in Nelson and the butter chicken pies FLY off the shelves)

@fran_wilde reminded me of Hokey Pokey ice cream (it's vanilla and caramel, but the caramel is in little globes), which isn't a baked good in-and-of-itself, but is absolutely best served between two cookies still warm from the oven

And finally: the cheese roll. Endemic to the bottom half of the South Island, it consists of bread with the crust cut off, french onion soup powder, sliced onions and, of course, a fuckload of cheese.

Don't eat anywhere north of Timaru, it'll be shit.