Australia Day Lamingtons

It's Australia Day today, so in recognition of my gorgeous and greatly missed homeland, I decided to make something new - Lamingtons. I love Lamingtons. Every time I go home to visit it is one of the first things I buy to treat myself, so I can tell a good one from a substandard one.

The Lamingtons recipe I used is from Donna Hay - another Aussie. The sponge recipe is fantastic. You get a really light textured crumb, and if you use an electric mixer for ten minutes, you will get a wonderfully light cake. The only issue I had with the recipe, was that I weighed everything out precisely and still found the icing to be way too thick for coating the sponge squares. I had to water it down considerably. It could have been because the room temperature in London in January is somewhat cooler than in Sydney.  A bit of boiled water and a short blast in the microwave sorted it out. Covering the sponge squares in the chocolate icing is a messy job, and in the end my better half gave me a hand.

My only critique of the recipe is that I think there was way too much icing sugar. The icing was too sweet, and it overpowered the chocolate. Next time - and there definitely will be a next time because I love Lamingtons - I'm planning to experiment on the icing to get it more to my taste.

This is definitely worth a go though, and Lamingtons are such a treat. Highly recommended.

Happy Australia Day. x

Donna Hay's Lamingtons - made in London to celebrate Australia Day 2013