Lamingtons

I love lamingtons! I think they must be my favourite cake (with the exception of course of Grandma's chocolate cake, which was made for us every birthday). Problem is I love them a little too much, so I limit myself to making them only a few times a year. Australia Day is one of them!

I would normally bake Grandma's basic vanilla sponge, but I cheated this time and bought a slab sponge from my local grocer. Easy enough to cut into whatever size you like.

Then there's the dipping in chocolate and smothering with coconut. Of course you can get some help with this part.

For the chocolate icing: 2 cups icing sugar 2 dessert spoons butter 2 dessert spoons cocoa 4 tablespoons boiling water You can sift all the dry ingredients, but I never bother. Just mix it all together until the butter has melted & you have a smooth runny consistency. Dip your cake in, then roll in coconut (about 2 cups according to the recipe, but I've never measured :-)

If you happen to have any left over, you can pour it over a slab and cover that with coconut.

Of course there are so many variations you can play with aside from changing the size. You can change the flavour of the cake (chocolate, strawberry, coffee, coconut etc), add whipped cream and/or jam (plum is my favourite). One thing I've wanted to try is to use the original in an Australian trifle - pair it with custard, jelly, strawberries, whipped cream, and top with meringue.

And then there's the recent boom in cake-pops! A few years ago I had mothers group come over to MamaBake before Australia Day. Having dunked 6 batches of lamingtons in our icing mix, there was quite a bit of cake left in the bottom of the bowl. (We'd baked the sponge that morning, so no time to 'cure') I ended up adding some coconut & rolling all the scraps from the bottom of the bowl together. Roll that in coconut and voila, lamington cake pops! Unfortunately I didn't take any photos, but here's part of the haul.

What's your favourite Lamington combination?

Details of my tools & toys can be found on this page.
~J

Disclosure: This is not a sponsored post. This post was written for Loving Lunches. No product was received for this post. All opinions expressed are my own, based on personal experience with the product.