Tuesday 7 August 2012

We love Lamingtons

One of my all time favourite treats as a little girl was tea and cake with the grown-ups. And when it came to lamingtons, this was an extra special occasion. A lamington is a sponge cake square first coated in chocolate and then dessicated coconut - hugely popular in South Africa and Australia.



You can either bake your own vanilla cake or buy a ready made one (if you buy a ready made cake, skip to the Dipping Sauce step). I use the cake recipe below which is extremely light and airy.

Hot Milk Sponge Cake:
Preheat the oven to 200 degrees Celsius (a little lower in a fan oven).

Prepare a square cake tin (butter and line the tin with baking paper). Note: The cake can be difficult to remove because it is so soft, so make sure you let it cool completely before removing from the tin!

Ingredients:
4 eggs
pinch of slt
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
1 heaped cup sugar
57g butter
3/4 cup milk
1 1/2 cups sifted plain flour
3 teaspoons baking powder

Beat the eggs with the salt, vanilla essence and sugar. Beat extremely well - about twice as long as you think  you need to, until the mixture is practically white.

Melt the butter in the milk. While the butter is melting, add the flour and baking powder to the egg mixture. Fold in very lightly and do not over mix.

Next, pour in the melted butter and milk mixture. Blend only just enough to mix everything together, then pour into tin.

Move quickly at this stage and get the cake into the oven as quickly as possible while the mixture is still warm.

Bake for 15-20 minutes until a tester comes out clean. Allow to cool completely and do not remove while still hot - the cake will break (I can vouch for this...)!

Once cool, cut cake into squares.

Dipping Sauce:
3 cups sugar
1 1/2 cups water
2 tablespoons cocoa powder
1 tablespoon butter

Bring to the boil and simmer for about 5 minutes. Allow to cool slightly. Dip cake blocks to coat with sauce and then roll in coconut.

Enjoy!

2 comments:

  1. Yuuuuum! I love lamingtons! I've just found my weekend project :-) xx

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