scaling Mt Lamington…
Before the onslaught of sewn Christmas gifts, and, I’m sorry, but there’s a LOT to share… here is a rare appearance of some baked Christmas gifts! We kind of have a no-gift policy within our extended families for Christmas nowadays, but I still always like to still give just a little something. There have been years in the past when I used to make little Christmas ornaments and tree decorations but lately I’ve stuck to edible treats. I dunno, but food seems less of an intrusive gift? if that makes sense? it can be kept for personal consumption if the recipient so desires, or else passed around at the ubiquitous seasonal parties at a pinch… and, unlike ornaments which can sorta impose upon people an expectation that they’re hauled out for display every year; they’re consumed, i.e. they GO! No random stuff to add to the household clutter, yay!
A few weeks ago, our friends R and J became Australian citizens after a looooooooooooooooong and extreeeeeeeeeemely drawn-out process, and celebrated with an “Australian” party; we all were to take a plate and I took a plate of petit fours, specifically that all-Australian classic: Lamingtons. But not the big honkous ones, oh no, little elegant bite-sized ones. They disappeared from the dessert table in quite a satisfactorily quick manner, so I decided to make them again for this years’ Christmas gift.
By the way, want to know what I wore?? I wore this ensemble!! haha, well if I’m going to wear it anywhere, it should be to an Australian party! Some people at the party were even very kindly interested to know the whole story!
Your classic Lamington is usually quite big, like 5-6cm (2+”) square, but I prefer them made in this bite-sized form a LOT more. They look sweet and more appetising, and just more fun … well anything in miniature is more fun, no?
My recipe… adapted from various sources. This makes a generous, party-sized batch; for gifts I made several batches to get enough.
Lamingtons
Sponge cake; if you’re short on time you can buy a ready-made sponge cake which makes this a super quick and easy treat! however it’s not that hard to make your own. If you do make your own, it’s best to make it a few days earlier and leave it to harden up and get just a little bit stale. Stale cake? yes sounds horrible, but trust me, the Lamingtons really are the better for it.
5 eggs
3/4c castor sugar
1 c SR flour
90g melted butter
Beat the eggs until thick and creamy and pale; while still beating add the sugar very gradually, and continue beating continuously until dissolved. Fold in butter, then sifted flour. Spread into a 25x30cm Swiss roll pan lined with baking paper, make sure the mixture is only, like 2-2.5cm deep, at most! and bake at 200C for about 10 minutes, or until a light golden brown. Turn out immediately and allow to cool completely. Once cool put in an airtight container and let it sit in the fridge for a few days until a little hardened and slightly stale before assembling the petit fours.
A few days later: take out the sponge and cut it into neat and even squares BEFORE you prepare your icing. Mine are about 2.5cm (1″) square in size, but obviously you can go whatever size you wish… square, however, is traditional!
Also before preparing the icing, have the desiccated coconut ready in a shallow bowl for the coating step. Only then, continue!
Icing:
3 1/2 c icing sugar
1/4 c cocoa powder
1 Tblsp melted butter
1/2 c boiling water
Large quantity of desiccated coconut for coating… around 300g should be plenty
mix all ingredients except coconut! together thoroughly. To save time and an extra pan; (remember the first rule of baking; minimise washing up at all costs!!) I just put the unmelted butter on top of the dry ingredients, and just slowly pour the boiling water on top of it; it quickly melts the butter into the mixture, saving you the extra step of having to melt it first.
To assemble the lamingtons; dump sponge cake squares into the chocolate icing and fully coat them, take out and let excess icing drip off for a second then quickly roll them in desiccated coconut. Messy, but just do it fast! It’s far better to do this step while the icing is still pretty warm, as it stiffens up pretty quickly as it cools… you can add tiny bits of boiling water to make it runny again but it’s not as good.
Set the freshly finished Lamingtons onto a wire rack and into the fridge to set completely. They can be frozen, and in fact are DECLICIOUS eaten frozen during the summer. Personally, I prefer them frozen… in any case it’s best to at least keep them in the fridge.
Real talk; this rather prosaic and un-pretty packaging below is how my family actually receives them…. when it comes to serving them up to guests I like to arrange them either in a militarily, strict grid on a square plate… OR even looking all dishevelledly pretty in a jumbled mini-mountain of lamington-boulders, like in the picture at top; but to give them away I buy these airtight, snap-lock boxes from the supermarket to pack ’em in. Not super glamorous but they are super practical… so people can pop the boxes straight into the freezer, and keep the containers afterwards to store other food in them, if they wish.
Also I just wanted to show here our gift tags for this year… made using the leftover bits of card from when I made my iceberg advent calendar recently. There was this little pile of randomly shaped card leftover and I couldn’t bring myself to throw them out with a need for Christmas gift tags just around the corner! I once again wielded my trusty old star stamp … oh, and can I just say, if I could say something to my younger, newly adult self, it would be GOOD ON YOU! for buying a small selection of stamps and high quality ink pads during that early, brief card-making phase, because for decades now I have continued to use these every year to make Christmas gift tags for practically nothing since they’ve paid for themselves a gazillion times over now.
waste not want not!
Merry Christmas, all!!!
Oh! and a random note about life here lately… I just have to share this… we’ve had a little family growing up in our garden over the past few weeks! a couple of willy wagtails built a beautiful and perfect little nest up in the upper boughs of one of our potted ficus by the pool… we watched with great interest as the two birds took turns sitting on the nest, until one day…
and then the next day…
and the next:
last Sunday:
Monday;
Tuesday:
Wednesday:
Thursday:
on Thursday arvo, one of them popped out of the nest!! it sat on the bough for a few hours but later on hopped back into the nest for the night. Every night a parent would sit on them all night…
on Friday, the parents started teaching them how to fly!
obviously I kept Clara inside all of this day and the next… I didn’t want them stressed out about her presence. It was too cute watching the babies in their wobbly attempts to fly, flopping onto our outdoor table and weaving a little drunkenly through the patio.
Two ended up in the lemon tree where they spent the night, the third one, which seemed a little less developed than the others, stayed in the nest another night. The parents were still catching insects for all three of them, and caring for them constantly…
Saturday:
all three end up in the lemon tree where they stay huddled up together most of the time. The parents are still spending all their time catching insects for them and looking out for them, encouraging them to fly.
Sunday: empty nest syndrome…. 
they’re still spending most of their time huddled together, although they’re moving about from tree to tree, and while they seem to be catching a few insects here and there the parents are still feeding them a bit.
Well. That’s where we stand. It’s totally amazing how fast they’ve grown up! there were a few days there where I felt they were changing almost by the hour! I can’t even express what a gorgeous pleasure it’s been to witness this little family growing up and such a privilege that the parent birds trusted us just enough to build their nest here in our garden. I just hope the nest will be used again next year!
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