The Muslim are deep into the Holy month of Ramadan, where they are required to fast for 1 month. During this time, i believe sweet treats come in handy during the time they break their fast. Its a tradition in Tanzania to make all the best dishes during Ramadan. i think this is in order to make Ramadan even more enjoyable, and of course spread love, food is love.
i am not Muslim my self, but i am privileged to have a few close people in my life that are. What other best way can one support her loved ones through Ramadan? Yep... make the best meals for them, and lucky for me i love to play around in the kitchen.
I learnt about lamingtons from a Papua New Guinea friend, Bern. i had to persuade her for the recipe and she was very generous to share it with me, and thank goodness it was an easy one. its been long i baked, so this one was a first time for me in over years, i was thrilled and i think i will bake more often, @cheft, i know you are with me on this.
this is the guide recipe she used that she got up from taste.com.au (she sent me a screen shot, so i could not attach link from its original website)
125g butter, softened
1 cup caster sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 eggs
1 3/4 cups self - raising flour, sifted
1/2 cups desiccated coconut
ICING
3 1/2 cups icing sugar mixture
1/4 cup cocoa powder
1 tablespoon butter, softened
1/2 cup Hot water
I made a lot of lamingtons, so i doubled ingredients from this recipe, and some i just used my good judgement. e.g instead of 3 eggs, i used 6.
Before i get into details,
first of all, INTRODUCTION.
A lamington is an Australian cake, made from squares of butter cake or sponge cake coated in an outer layer of chocolate sauce and rolled in desiccated coconut. Wikipedia
in my case, i made it with butter cake. Soooo Leggoooo :
step 1.
The cake mix. (if you know how to bake a cake, you should probably skip this part, lol, as i am a novice, and probably made a lot of mistakes)
soften Butter with a mixer, add eggs, sugar, baking flour and baking powder (since i did not have the self raising flour), vanilla extract . Mix well at each interval before adding the next ingredient.
Pre heat the oven before baking. i used a small baking dish, so i baked twice, at 45 minutes each on medium heat.
ingredients + vanilla extract (not in photo)
final cake mix, ready for the oven.
fresh outa the oven, , let it cool, then cut into equal pieces. i was able to get 15 pieces per cake.
baked twice, so 30 in total.
proceed to next step.
Step 2.
preparing the icing.
On a flat container, mix the icing sugar mixture and cocoa powder. pour half cup of hot water. This will melt the mixture. Add a little bit of butter and mix well. There you have a chocolate mix.
on another bowl, pour the desiccated coconut.
Now here, what you do is , take a piece of the cake, dip in the chocolate mix, making sure all sides are coated.
Dip the cake in the desiccated coconut and coat all sides too. this part should be done quickly to avoid making a mess as the chocolate mix is drippy.
And voila, there you have it... LAMINGTONS.
For long lasting , i suggest you put them in an air tight container and store in the fridge.
Final Product.. lol
Easy, Right? Go on and try it. They are super yummy. i went a little overboard with the Sugar though (unintentional)
Estimated total cost for all the ingredients is 600PHP, about $12.
I am not Australian, so i may not have done it perfectly as they do.