‘Croatian’ Lamingtons

Love chocolate? Love coconut? Then you’ll gonna love these little squares of joy!

A traditional Australian treat, lamingtons are little sponge cakes coated in chocolate and coconut and usually filled with jam. But why do I call them ‘croatian’ then? Well because I know them by the name ‘chupavci’ and have been eating/making them since my childhood. Didn’t even know lamingtons existed before moving to London, to be honest :D

But who cares how we call them as long as they taste good, here is a traditional recipe for a firmer sponge cake and chocolate icing that my mother and I use when baking them. Hope you’ll give them a go :)

Ingredients (big batch – makes around 30 lamingtons)

Sponge

6eggs (separate yolks and withes in two different bowls)
500g all-purpose flour (or if you for self-raising skip baking powder!)
300g sugar
90ml water
150ml sunflower oil
1tbsp/10g baking powder

Chocolate Icing

400ml milk
4tbsp brown sugar
200g dark chocolate (60% or less)
50g butter
Pinch of salt
2tbsp rum (optional)

Coating

200g desiccated coconut

Method

Sponge Cake

Preheat the oven to 180˚C. Grease and flour a 30x40cm pan, lining the base of the pan with parchment paper. Beat the egg yolks and sugar in a large bowl with a hand mixer until pale and thick (around 3 minutes). Sift the flour and baking powder over the egg and sugar mixture, slowly add oil and water, gently mixing with a hand mixer until completely combined. In the other bowl mix the egg whites until firm, use the spatula to gently combine egg whites with the cake mixture.

Bake for 20- 25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the middle of the cake comes out clean. The cake should spring back when lightly touched in the centre.

Cut cake, when cooled down, into even, bite-sized pieces about 4-5cm or bigger if you like. I usually discard the edge pieces, as they won’t be completely square. At this stage, you can refrigerate the cake for a few hours or leave the cake overnight in an airtight container because a slightly less fresh cake will be easier to dip in the chocolate icing. But I usually don’t have the patience to do this :D

When you are ready to dip the cakes, set up an area large enough to accommodate bowls for the cake pieces, the chocolate icing, the coconut and also a large airtight container or serving plate with the lid (this way they will stay moist for a couple of days). You will need to work quickly to dip the cakes so having everything organised in advance will help.

Chocolate Mixture

Simply add all the ingredients to a pan and cook over low heat until chocolate is completely melted and you have a nice glossy chocolate icing. Let it cool down to a room temperature before dipping the cake cubes into it.

Working quickly, using two forks or your hands, dip the cake cubes into the chocolate mixture and roll them around with the tines of the fork/fingers to completely coat. Drain any excess mixture off the cakes then drop them in the coconut and roll them around lightly to coat evenly with coconut. As I said previously, keep them in an airtight container or a serving plate with the lid, they will stay fresh for a couple of days and always serve them at a room temperature!