December 22, 2025 — 5:00am
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Got itThe dish: White Christmas, Australia
A merry Copha Christmas.Marcel Aucar
Plate up We have our own Christmas traditions in Australia, for sure. A swim at the beach on Christmas Day, a plate of cold prawns and some even colder stubbies to kick the celebrations off, a lazy day in front of the cricket to recover – these are all recognisable rituals, the things you miss when you’re not here. But our own food? Our own distinctive Christmas dishes? This is where we’re a little lacking. We tend to go with other nations’ traditions.
But there’s one exception, and it comes in the form of a sweet, toothsome treat: white Christmas. Take a step back into your childhood for a second and recall this slice made with dried fruit – sultanas, glace cherries, citrus rind – desiccated coconut, powdered milk, Rice Bubbles and icing sugar, which is then mixed with Copha, a coconut oil, and left in the fridge to set. The result is very sweet, a little sticky, unquestionably white, and a true Australian contribution to the Christmas table.
First serve It’s not easy to define the exact history of white Christmas in Australia. The slice probably emerged around the 1940s or 50s, when Copha, one of the key ingredients – and one that was produced in Balmain in Sydney – began to be widely popularised. Copha comes from copra, the dried flesh of a coconut, and in 1913 the Lever Brothers registered the trademark for their new product made via the hydrogenation process, allowing oils to solidify and be stored at room temperature.
Pastry recipes using Copha date back to 1918, though it wasn’t until the 1930s and 40s that its use in no-bake recipes began to spread (the first recipe for chocolate crackles, using Copha, was published in The Australian Women’s Weekly in December 1937).
Order here This might be one of Australia’s few original contributions to the Christmas table, but it’s also increasingly unfashionable and highly unlikely to be served anywhere but your mum’s place or at the school fete. Best bet if you want to try this is to use a recipe.
Cook it Up the indulgence levels with this cherry, macadamia, Turkish delight and amaranth version of white Christmas from Karen Martini. Follow the recipe on Good Food.
One more thing The Lever Brothers was a British soap-making company that ran a factory in Balmain from 1895 to 1988, where it produced Sunlight Soap, as well as Copha. In 1930, the Lever Brothers merged with Margarine Unie to form Unilever.
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Ben Groundwater is a Sydney-based travel writer, columnist, broadcaster, author and occasional tour guide with more than 25 years’ experience in media, and a lifetime of experience traversing the globe. He specialises in food and wine – writing about it, as well as consuming it – and at any given moment in time Ben is probably thinking about either ramen in Tokyo, pintxos in San Sebastian, or carbonara in Rome. Follow him on Instagram @bengroundwaterConnect via email.Traveller GuidesFrom our partners
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