Lamingtons (Makes 20-25)

An Australian pastry with chocolate icing and coconut..

Lamingtons are butter sponge cake squares coated with a layer of chocolate icing and desiccated coconut. We absolutely love these short chocolate covered pastry and hope you will love them too…

For the butter cake

All purpose flour/ cake flour 2 cups
Baking powder 2 heaping tsp
Baking soda ½ tsp
Butter 1 cup or 4 oz
Powdered sugar 7 TBSP
Eggs 2 nos
Milk 250 mL
Vanilla extract  ½ tsp
Salt a pinch

Makes one 9’ cake

Preheat oven to 350 F.

In a bowl, strain together all purpose flour/cake flour, baking powder and baking soda at least twice. Set aside.

In another bowl beat together powdered sugar and butter to a creamy consistency. Next add eggs one by one and beat well to mix with butter and sugar. Now add the dry ingredients in batches and mix well to get a smooth batter by adding milk little by little in between, lastly add vanilla extract and give a final mix. Pour this into a 9’ square cake pan and bake for 30-35 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Allow the cake to cool. Once cooled cut into square pieces and set aside. The texture of the cake should be firm and not soft.

For the chocolate icing

Powdered sugar 3 cups
Cocoa powder 3 heaping TBSP
Water ½ cup
Butter 1 TBSP

Preparation

Mix together sugar and cocoa power. In a pan boil water and add the butter. Once the butter melts remove from flame and add to the sugar, cocoa powder and beat well to get thick syrup. Set aside.

For rolling the cake

Desiccated coconut 2 cups

Now using a fork pick each cake squares and dip in the chocolate syrup and allow the excess syrup to drop down. Roll the squares in desiccated coconut and allow to set. These make a great party dessert.

Tips

Instead of baking the cake, you can get the store bought pound cake and make the same. Refrigerate the pound cake to make it a little bit firmer and then dip in the icing
Lamingtons can be stored in air tight container and has a shelf life of 4-5 days at room temperature and up to 12 days in the refrigerator