My Mum judges a coffee shop by the quality of it’s Lamingtons. They have to be light and fluffy on the inside and ooey-gooey chocolatey on the outside, with just the right amount of coconut sprinkled over them. She doesn’t go for the neat and tidy, all exactly the same commercial variety you find in the supermarket, she likes the huge messy home-made ones that you often have to resort to eating with a spoon. My mum’s not usually a fussy person, if she went to visit a friend for coffee and they served her a vegemite sandwich she’d be more than happy, but she does love a good Lamington.
Until this week I had never made Lamingtons, but Miss 9’s Year 4 class was celebrating Harmony Day with the parents and everyone was to bring a plate relevant to their nationality, and Miss 9 (along with 6 others) chose Lamingtons. “They have to be the recipe I included in my assignment”, she protested as I contemplated a quick trip to Woolworths. So Thursday morning while Mr8 dropped the kids at school, Miss 3 and I started our Lamingtons. Miss 3 is the best mixer. I followed the instructions I had scrawled out on a piece of paper (because Miss 3 recently dropped our iPad) and started measuring and mixing. But when I got to the part where I was to pour my mixture into the pan, it just didn’t look right. Should I add more milk? Was the recipe incorrect? Oh, hang on! Maybe I should add those 3 eggs that were to be added to the creamed butter and sugar! What should I do now? Start again, or risk it by adding the eggs and live with the consequences? Well I added the eggs, beat it like crazy, poured it into the pan, popped it into the oven and said a few prayers. Looks like someone was listening!:
Can you believe it? This beautiful cake is what came out of my oven! My next dilemma was how big to cut the squares. My friend Helena suggested via FB that I go small and cut it into 12 squares. And once I dipped them in chocolate and tossed them in the coconut they were huge, so thank you Helena.
A few tips on coating your Lamingtons: First of all, make your cake the day before as they suggest. It’s really, really difficult to dip fresh cake in chocolate icing without it falling apart. And then you end up with lumps of cake in your icing, and you will find yourself mixing up another batch of icing.
Second, work fast! That icing starts to thicken and set pretty quickly, so don’t dilly dally trying to get it all even and pretty looking, the coconut will cover most of the faults.
Third, just enjoy them. No-one will really care what they look like, they’re FRESH LAMINGTONS, a delicacy, who cares what they look like.
And fourth, please don’t be tempted to put them in the fridge to speed up the setting time of the icing, you will only make them harden, and the coconut will never quite be the same. Speaking from experience here. The ones left over the next day had to make a trip into the microwave for a few seconds to freshen them up a bit. But they were still very nice.
So, you have seen one of my better Lamingtons at the top of this post, now let me share one of the worst. One of my lumpy, bumpy, uneven ones.
There you go, you can’t do much worse than that! So have a go at making your own Lamingtons next National Lamington Day, July 20th. Yes, we do have a National Lamington Day. Who knew?
Lamingtons
Ingredients
125 g Butter, softened
1 Cup Caster Sugar (I only had regular)
1/2 tsp Vanilla Extract
3 Eggs (Don’t do what I did and leave them out!)
1 3/4 Cups Self-Raising Flour, sifted
1/2 Cup Milk
2 Cups Desiccated Coconut
Icing:
3 1/2 Cups Icing Sugar Mixture
1/4 Cup Cocoa Powder
1 Tbl Butter, softened
1/2 Cup Boiling Water
Directions:
Preheat your oven to 180°C/160°C fan-forced.
Grease a 3cm-deep, 20cm x 30cm (base) lamington pan, or if you’re like me and you don’t have one, just use a regular slice tin. It worked fine.
Line with baking paper, leaving a 2cm overhang on all sides.
Using an electric mixer if you have one, beat the butter, sugar and vanilla until light and fluffy.
Now, this is the important part: Add The Eggs, 1 at a time, beating well after each addition (mixture may curdle). Don’t do what I did and forget about them until you find yourself with dough instead of cake batter.
Sift half the flour over the butter mixture and stir to combine.
Add half the milk. Stir to combine.
Repeat this process with the remaining flour and milk.
Spoon your batter into the prepared pan and smooth the top.
Bake for 30 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean.
Stand in the pan for 10 minutes.
Turn out onto a wire rack.
Cover with a clean tea towel.
Set aside overnight. I really recommend this step, it’s too hard to dip fresh cake in icing.
To make the Icing:
Sift the icing sugar and cocoa into a bowl.
Add the softened butter and boiling water and stir until smooth.
Cut the cake into 12 or 15 pieces (12 for the slice tin, 15 for the lamington pan).
Place the coconut in a deep dish.
Using a fork, dip 1 piece of cake into the icing spooning some over the top if you need to, then allow the excess to drip off a little. Remember to work fast here so that your icing doesn’t start to set.
Quickly place the iced lamington into the coconut and gently toss to coat.
Place on a wire rack over a baking tray. In my case I just used my grill tray.
Repeat this process with the remaining pieces of cake.
Stand for 2 hours or until set, resisting the urge to place them in the fridge to speed up the setting process.
Now put the kettle on, invite some friends over and show off your hard work over a cuppa.
Original Source: http://www.taste.com.au/recipes/24553/lamingtons