Lovely Lamington Cake

Traditionally this dessert which derives from Australia is made of small 2" x 2" squares of sponge cake, that are assembled together with a jam/cream/or chocolate filling. Then they are dipped in chocolate and rolled in shredded coconut. Lamingtons date back to the early 1900s, when at first like my version of the recipe it was made as a whole cake, it is noted in cookbooks a decade later that the recipe then shifted into the little lamington square cakes. The smaller Lamington squares would have been very popular to serve with tea.  The square cake recipe has remained quite popular, today many school, scout, and church groups use these cakes as fundraisers called Lamington Drives. Australia even recognizes July 21st as National Lamington Day, which is celebrated by Lamington Drives.

I fell in love with this dessert on my first trip to Australia, when my friend's mother and I went grocery shopping and stopped by the bakery on our way out of the shop.  We decided to grab a treat to have with our afternoon tea.  My friend, Emma's mother, Barbara loved sharing Australia's culture and history with me.  So that was the first time I had a Lamington, I have craved one for many years, and I haven't had one since I was in Australia which has been too many years ago, this recipe is very close to the one I had and it brought back beautiful memories. I hesitated making them up until now, because I always considered the dipping and rolling a tedious part of the recipe, so I decided take that portion out, and still enjoy the blissful dessert!

 (*Special Note- I use coconut flour and lots of eggs in place of all purpose flour, because I try to make more paleo/primal friendly cake recipes, which means no wheat/gluten/or grains.  I also try to minimize as much sugar as possible, so instead of a frosting that uses 4 cups of confectioner sugar I use straight chocolate and minimal ingredients). Enjoy!


Cake Ingredients:
3/4 Coconut Flour
1 tsp Salt
1 tsp Baking Soda
10 Eggs
1 Tbsp Pure Vanilla Extract
3/4 Maple Syrup
1 cup melted Coconut Oil
1 cup shredded unsweetened coconut

Filling Ingredients:

1/2-3/4 cup Jam/Mush (I prefer a No Sugar Added seedless Blackberry Jam when blackberries are not in season. When blackberries are in season I use blackberry mush where I will take a 1-2 cups of blackberries and use a 1/4-1/3 cup water and cook them down in a small saucepan, using no sugar.  If you want a little sweetness added to them or a sweetening agent to help thicken the mush, I would suggest 1/4 cup of maple syrup instead of straight sugar).  You can also use a cream filling, chocolate filling, strawberry jam filling, plum filling, or a lemon custard filling.

Frosting Ingredients:

1 cup  chocolate bits (= 1 Hershey's Milk Chocolate Bar 4.4 oz/1 Hershey's Special Dark Bar 4.4oz/1 cup of semisweet chocolate chips)

1/3 cup coconut oil
1 Tbsp Pure Vanilla Extract

Directions:

-Preheat oven to 325*F.
-In a small bowl, add coconut flour, salt and baking soda.
-In a large bowl, combine eggs, maple syrup, vanilla, and melted coconut oil.
-Add dry ingredients to wet and continue to blend.
-Once batter is blended and smooth, stir in 3/4 cup of shredded coconut (save the other 1/4 cup for sprinkling on top of the frosting).
-Grease two 9 inch cake pans with coconut oil (you can use round cake pans or square).
-Line the bottom of pans with parchment paper, it makes it much easier to remove the cakes.
-Pour batter into pans.
-Bake for 35 minutes.
-Remove cakes from oven and let cool.


While the cake is cooking in the oven you can make the frosting. 
-In a medium saucepan, melt 1/3 cup of coconut oil on low heat.
-Add 1 cup of chocolate bits (depending on what flavor you want, milk, dark or semi sweet), and slowly melt with the coconut oil, whisking as it melts to help smooth out the chocolate.
-Add 1 Tbsp of Pure Vanilla Extract, whisk and then pour into a glass dish and set in the refrigerator to cool for 30 minutes.
-After 30 minutes the frosting should be thickened enough to start putting on top of the cakes (once they have cooled down)

But before putting the frosting on the cakes, you must spread your filling in between the two layers. To do this, I place one cake on the cake plate/dish. Then gently fold a thin layer of the jam over the cake with a knife or spatula.  Once you feel you have enough jam to create a nice even layer, then carefully place the second layer of the cake on top.  Remember when you remove the frosting from the refrigerator to whisk well before using. Now you are ready to gently spread the chocolate frosting over the cake.  You may feel like this amount of frosting is not enough for this cake...remember you want a really thin layer of chocolate (as it sits in the refrigerator it will continue to firm, making it more into the consistency of a chocolate ganache). After you have the chocolate spread evenly over the top and down the sides (push the chocolate frosting across the cake with a spatula).  Now you can top the cake off with a heavy sprinkling of the leftover shredded unsweetened coconut.