Lamingtons recipe

Squares of day-old butter sponge dunked in a thin cocoa icing that soaks into the crumb, then rolled in coconut.

17 hours and 5 minutesmedium11 ingredients

Ingredients

• 480 g icing sugar
• 25 g cocoa powder
• 200 g desiccated coconut
• 260 g plain flour
• 220 g caster sugar
• 3 tsp baking powder
• 140 g unsalted butter
• 3 eggs
• 125 ml milk
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 150 ml boiling water

How to make Lamingtons

1. Heat the oven to 180 °C and line a 20 cm square tin. Cream 140 g of unsalted butter with 220 g of caster sugar and 1 tsp of vanilla, then beat in 3 eggs one at a time.
2. Fold in 260 g of flour sifted with 3 tsp of baking powder, alternating with 125 ml of milk, and spread the batter in the tin.
3. Bake 30-35 minutes, until a skewer comes out clean. Cool, then leave the cake uncovered overnight: a day-old crumb holds together in the icing instead of falling apart.
4. Cut into 16 squares and freeze them for 1 hour so the cut edges stay sharp.
5. Whisk 220 g of icing sugar with 25 g of cocoa powder, 150 ml of boiling water and 140 g of butter until smooth and syrupy. It must stay runny enough to coat thinly, so keep the bowl over hot water.
6. Drop each square into the icing, turn it with two forks, lift it out and let the excess drip off. The icing should soak a thin dark layer into the crumb, not set as a shell.
7. Roll each coated square straight away in 200 g of desiccated coconut.
8. Set the lamingtons on a rack for 1-2 hours until the icing firms, then serve; they can also be split and filled with jam and whipped cream.

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