Lamingtons

Lamingtons were always one of those goodies you would always find at a school bake sale. It's really an Aussie tradition just like the meat pie and pavlovas. I can remember whenever my brother's school had a lamingtion drive our house would be full to the brim with lamingtons. Lamingtons in the cake container, lamingtons in the fridge and lamingtons for later in the deep freeze! 

Now a lamington isn't too bad. Actually is a pretty good cake. A little sponge cake dipped in chocolate icing and coated with desiccated coconut. Sometimes even with a layer of cream sandwiched between the sponges. A bit messy to make, especially with it comes to the dipping in the chocolate icing and coating it in the desiccated coconut but that also can be alot of  fun part. 

The lamington has been around over 100 years and was made in honour of Lord Lamington (Charles Cochrane-Baillie), who served as the Governor of Queensland. It was made accidently when there was nothing to serve to some guest but some leftover sponge cake, and a bit of chocolate icing, and some desiccated coconut. Imagine that!

Lamingtons

125 g butter

3/4 cup caster sugar

3 eggs

2 cups plain flour

2 tsp baking powder

pinch of salt

1 tsp vanilla essence

1/2 cup milk

icing

3 cups icing sugar

1 tbsp butter, melted

1/3 cup cocoa powder

1/3 cup water

Preheat the oven to 180C.

1. In a mixing bowl, cream the butter and sugar using an electric mixer until it is light and creamy. Add the vanilla essence and mix well. Gradually add each egg on at a time and mix well. 

2. Sift the flour and baking powder and fold it into the butter mixture using a metal spoon. Alternate this with the milk and mix well.

3. Line a lamington tin (20cm x 30cm) with grease paper. Pour the mixture into the tin and bake for about 25 to 30 mins or until cooked. Leave it to cool and refrigerate for about 2 hours or overnight.

Icing

1. Using a mixing bowl. Sift the icing sugar and cocoa. Add the butter and water and mix well until smooth, and slight runny.

2. Arrange the icing bowl, desiccated coconut in separate bowls. Prepare the cake by cutting it into small rectangles about 24 pcs. Using 2 forks, gently dip the cake into the icing and coat all sides with it. Drain off any excess icing and then roll the cake with the desiccated coconut. Gently pat the coconut onto the cake so that all the side are coated. Place it on a rack or a plate to dry and repeat for the other pieces. The whole process can be pretty messy when you dip the cake into the chocolate icing but the coconut will absorb most of the excess moisture from the icing.

3. When the cakes have been rolled in the coconut, place it in a container and refrigerate to firm it up. It should be ready to serve when it has been cooled for about 2 hours or overnight.