The Lamington Curse

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Mr. P over at Delicious, Delicious, Delicious has been cursed in my kitchen a few times during the making of these lamingtons. You see it was his idea to have a contest focusing on these Australian treats. For anyone also not familiar with them, basically they are a small square piece of cake which is covered in chocolate and then coated in coconut… I know …yum! I quite honestly had not heard of them before Mr. P came into my life.

I had some grand ideas as well as a few ideas to make life a bit easier…come on two young kids necessitates short cuts on occasion! I had planned on buying 2 premade pound cakes as the base but on shopping day I could not find a pound cake to save my life (1st cursing of Mr P). But did this stop me? No way! I decided to do it the old fashioned way and make two pound cakes from scratch both, yet again, by Rose Levy Barnabaum and her Cake Bible. The first was her double vanilla pound cake and the second was her chocolate bread (chocolate pound cake). I forgot to take pictures of these (curse #2 on Mr P).

I am always looking for ways to involve the kids and this event was no exception. I wanted to colour the coconut spring colours to make up for the very day greys we've had lately in Vancouver. So the kids got to the pick colours for our Spring Lamingtons – pink and green. I added the colour gels to a cup of coconut placed in Ziploc bags. We put on some music (Mary had a little “lamb”ington was not among them!) and shook the bags until the coconut were beautiful shades of pink and green.

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I thought the only way to make these delectable morsels of cake and chocolate even better would be to add a tasty bit of delicious, buttery caramel sauce right in the middle. To do this I placed a small indent in the middle of the cake piece and then used my turkey baster to add the caramel sauce. Afterwards I capped the hole with a little bit of cake.

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From lamingtons

Curse #3 on Mr. P came while trying to glaze my cut-up pound cakes. The chocolate glaze was easy to make but getting it to the right consistency was a bit more difficult as it had to cool to the right pouring temp. I was vigilant until American Idol came on and then well, “pants on the floor” guy came on and I was sucked into watching it!!! By the time I finished laughing my glaze was a bit too stiff. It still tasted fantastic and was more than useable, but I had to frost it like a cake rather than just pour it over the cake as I had hoped.

My other idea for lamingtons was “reverse lamingtons” – chocolate cake with white chocolate glaze and toasted coconut. But to be honest by the time I finished icing the Spring Lamingtons there was no more “spring” in my step… it was waaay too late for another glaze and I had a tonne of the original chocolate glaze left. Curse #4, Mr P.

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So I made “lamington surprise” versions instead – they look like regular lamingtons but…surprise… chocolate cake!

I took most of them to work the next day and I have to say everyone LOVED them (well, except the guy allergic to coconut). The kids thought they were the best thing ever- “even better than cupcakes, Mom.”

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From lamingtons

So now I take back all of the cursing I have placed upon Mr. P because thanks to him my coworkers satisfied their sweet-tooths, my kids had a great time, and I tried something new in the kitchen… thanks Mr. P :)

From lamingtons

From lamingtons