Tomorrow is Australia Day so I wanted to make something traditionally Australia. Last year I made a lamington cake but this time I went with the original lamington, a chocolate coated and coconut covered cake. I found them in every cake shop when I was in Croatia last year and apparently, they're popular in Hungary as well. Lamingtons seem to have taken over the world.
A lamington drive was a popular fund raiser at our school. We always ordered a few dozen lamingtons which we'd then place in the deep freeze. Mum thought they'd be safe there until we discovered that frozen lamingtons taste pretty good!
I last made lamingtons when I was in high school and I remembered it being a messy task which ended with all my fingers coated in chocolate icing and coconut. I haven't had a home made lamington in years.
A day before you need the lamingtons, you make the base using either a butter cake or a sponge cake recipe which is then baked in a special lamington tin. I didn't have one so I went out and bought one specially. Once the cake cools you store it in the fridge. Cooling the cake makes trimming the edges and cutting the cake into squares a whole lot easier. Here's a recipe close to the one I used except I added 50 grams of melted dark chocolate to the chocolate icing mixture.
The process was as messy as I'd remembered.
- It took close to an hour to coat the 24 lamingtons so next time I'd leave half the cake in the fridge until it was needed.
- Using a fork to dip the cakes into the icing is what's recommended but the cake tends to crumble. I found dipping the cake by hand was more effective but that meant I had to wash my hands 24 times.
- I stirred the chocolate icing in between each coating and added boiling water to thin out the icing when needed.
- The coconut needs to be renewed regularly as it gets stained brown pretty quickly. I only used enough coconut to coat 4 lamingtons and then would replace the coconut.
- Desiccated coconut is suggested in most recipes but shredded coconut looks prettier.
- I had one for my breakfast on Sunday and it tasted even better than I remembered. I don't normally eat cake for breakfast but I'd just been to the gym and by the time I'd finished photographing the lamingtons it seemed rude not to try one....
Happy Australia Day,
Jillian
Do you have any blog crushes? My food crushes for 2011 were David Lebovitz and Ottolenghi, so don't be surprised if a few more of their recipes start appearing on the blog. This fruit and nut loaf recipe comes via David's blog. When Christmas was over I realised I had a whole stack of dried fruit and nuts left in the cupboard and wanted to use them before the nuts went stale. I normally store my nuts in the freezer to keep them fresh but I'd run out of space. I have a tiny freezer.
When I looked through the recipe, I had everything I needed including the dried apricots. When I opened the packet, I discovered I'd inadvertently bought turkish apricots instead of the local product. I never ever buy turkish apricots as they don't have any discernable flavour but when I'm not wearing my glasses I come home from the shops with all kind of surprises. Some good and some, not so good.
So back to the shops I went in search of the real deal. Before I made the cake, I piled all the fruit and nuts into a small loaf tin and it fitted fine so I decided to make a fruit and nut loaf rather than fruit bars or squares.
There's barely any cake mixture, just enough to glue the fruit together, so I mixed the whole thing with my hands before packing it tightly into the tin. The loaf took about an hour to bake and I couldn't wait to try a slice.
The apricots make the cake, so I'm so glad I made the return journey to the shops. As there's been so much over indulging recently and I've got some Christmas cake to eat, I've packed the cake and placed it back in the freezer to be consumed at a later date.
See you all again on Wednesday,
Jillian
I bought Ottolenghi: The Cookbook for my friend Mandy for Christmas. My own copy lay unwrapped because I'd just been so busy in the lead-up to Christmas. Mandy told me these blueberry muffins were the best ever, so I thought I'd better try the recipe for myself.
Blueberry Crumble Muffins from Ottolenghi: The Cookbook
Makes about 18 regular sized muffins.
Muffins:
540 g plain flour
5 tsp baking powder
2 large eggs
340 g caster sugar
140 g unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly
380 ml milk
grated zest of 1 lemon
1 Granny Smith apple (unpeeled), cut into 1cm dice
200 g fresh blueberries plus extra for topping
Crumble:
150 g plain flour
50 g caster sugar
100 g cold butter, cut into small cubes
To make the crumble:
- Put the flour, sugar and butter in a bowl and mix with your hands to work into a uniform breadcrumb consistency. Make sure there are no large lumps of butter left.
- Transfer to a plastic container and store in the fridge. It also keeps very well in the freezer.
To make the muffins:
- Preheat the oven to 170°C /325°C. Line a muffin tray with paper cases.
- Sift together the flour, baking powder and set aside. In a large mixing bowl, lightly whisk together the eggs, sugar and melted butter. Whisk in the milk and lemon zest, then gently fold in the fruit.
- Add the sifted dry ingredients to the blueberry mixture and fold together very gently. Make sure you stir the mix just enough to combine; it should remain lumpy and rough.
- Spoon the mixture into the muffin cases to fill them up. Generously cover with the crumble topping to form small domes over the batter then dot with a few extra blueberries.
- Bake for 30 to 35 minutes, or until a skewer inserted in the centre of a muffin comes out clean.
- Take out of the tins while still warm.
I already had some leftover crumble mix in the freezer, so I used my own oaty version rather than making a fresh batch.
I made half the recipe and it still made 12 muffins, so they must use huge muffin tins at Ottolenghi's. I did have one of the muffins for my breakfast following the first cycle class for 2012 and yes, it was very good.
I hope you enjoyed the weekend. See you all again on Wednesday.
Jillian
I spent Christmas with my family in Brisbane. On Christmas Day, I found this gift waiting for me. Look what I found inside.
A whole box of goodies from Bespoke Press, a gift from a thoughtful friend. Wasn't that sweet?
I hope you all had a good break from work and are looking forward to the New Year. Tomorrow is my first day back at work for 2012 and I'm wondering what the New Year will bring?
Jillian
