Each year to celebrate Australia Day, I make lamingtons. I like to play around with the traditional lamington though so in the past I've made lamington cupcakes, lamington ice cream cakes and a single layer lamington cake. This year I decided to make a lamington layer cake, sandwiched with home made raspberry jam and cream.
I needed to make a batch of raspberry jam first because my pot of jam was almost empty. At the last minute I decided to make some vanilla syrup to douse the layers because there is nothing worse than a dry lamington.
The whole process was pretty easy and far less messy than making individaul lamingtons. I am however still sweeping up bits of coconut from my kitchen floor and finding little bits of coconut in nooks and crannies in the kitchen.
Here's the recipe for you adapted from here, which makes a 3 layer 16 cm cake. For all my recipes I use a 250ml cup and a 20 ml tablespoon, unsalted butter and 60g eggs. My oven is a conventional gas oven so if your oven is fan forced you may need to reduce the oven temperature by 20°C.
Lamington Layer Cake
Cake
100 g self raising flour
50g plain flour
20 g cornflour
Pinch salt
170 g unsalted butter, softened
165 g caster sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 eggs, at room temperature
50 mls milk
Vanilla Syrup
50 mls water
½ tsp vanilla bean paste or ½ vanilla bean, seeds scraped
50 g sugar
Chocolate Icing
5g (1 tsp) butter
1 cup sifted icing sugar
12 g (1½ tbs) cocoa powder, sifted
½ tsp vanilla extract
¼ cup (60 ml) milk
30g (1oz) dark chocolate, coarsely chopped
Filling
½ cup of raspberry jam
300ms cream, softly whipped with ½ tsp vanilla bean paste and 3 tsp caster sugar
To decorate
½ cup of desiccated coconut
Cake
Pre-heat the oven to 180°C (conventional) and grease and line three 16cm tins with baking paper.
Sift the flours and salt together into a small bowl and set to one side. Using a stand mixer or hand held beaters, cream together the butter, sugar and vanilla until the mixture is light in colour and fluffy. Incorporate the eggs one at a time. Add one third of the flour to the batter and mix until just combined. Add half the milk and mix well. Repeat until all the ingredients are just incorporated.
Divide the batter evenly between the tins and level the tops. Bake for 20 minutes or until the cakes bounce back when pressed lightly, or a skewer inserted into the top of the cake comes out clean. Leave to cool in the tin for 15 minutes before turning out onto a rack to cool completely. Using a pastry brush, brush each cake layer with 1-2 tbs of the vanilla syrup letting the syrup absorb.Chill the cake layers in the fridge for 15 minutes. This will help firm the cake and make it easier to handle.
Vanilla Syrup
Place the sugar and water into a small saucepan. Place over a medium heat and stir to dissolve the sugar. Bring the mixture to a boil then lower to a simmer and simmer for 2-3 minutes or until the mixture has slightly thickened. Take off the heat and stir through the vanilla bean paste or vanilla pod and seeds. Allow to cool completely before using.
Chocolate Icing
Melt the butter and chocolate in a medium heatproof bowl over a saucepan of simmering water. Stir sifted icing sugar and cocoa into the chocolate. Add the vanilla extract and enough milk to make an icing of a coating consistency. If the icing thickens too much thin it out with a little more milk or water or you can zap it in the microwave for about 20 seconds on high. This makes a generous amount of icing.
Method
Prepare a baking tray with desiccated coconut so you’re ready to roll as soon as you’ve iced the cake layers.
Use a small offset spatula to ice the edges of the cake layer. Immediately roll the edge of the iced cake through the coconut. Place on a wire rack until the icing has set and repeat with the remaining cake layers.
Assembly
Place the first cake layer onto a serving plate. Spread the layer with a generous amount of jam, and top with ½ of the cream. Repeat the process until you reach your final layer. Use a knife to spread the top of the cake with chocolate icing, and sprinkle with desiccated coconut. Refrigerate until serving time.
I took this into work and it went down a treat - well cake, chocolate, jam and cream!
See you all again next week with some more baking from my kitchen.
Bye for now,
Jillian
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