Recipe | Lamington cake – a chocolate and coconut alternative to yule log!

A variation on Australian Lamington cake, this loaf-shaped chocolate cake with chocolate frosting and a coconut coating is a simple alternative to yule log.

Firstly: apologies to those of you who have an aversion to coconut. I know there are many people who can’t stand the stuff. If you skip down to the bottom of this post, I’ve put links to a couple of entirely coconut-free recipes.

This week’s recipe comes, again, from my 2001 Marks and Spencer Simply Baking recipe book. As I said last week, in case anyone’s interested, here are links to secondhand copies at Abebooks and Amazon.com.

I did make a small change to the recipe by removing the whipped cream filling. When I discovered there was a lot of chocolate frosting left over, I decided this could be used as extra topping when serving up a slice and the cream wasn’t necessary.

Ingredients (8-10 slices)

175 g/ 6 oz butter or margarine
175 g/ 6 oz caster sugar
3 eggs, lightly beaten
150 g/ 5.5 oz self-raising flour
2 tbsp cocoa powder
50 g/ 1.75 oz dark chocolate, broken into pieces
5 tbsp milk (I used full fat, but I’m sure other types would work)
1 tsp butter
125 g/ 4.5 oz icing sugar
about 8 tbsp desiccated coconut

Method

Grease and line a loaf tin, ideally a long, thin tin measuring around 7.5 x 25 cm/ 3 x 10 inches. Pre-heat the oven to 180 degrees C/ Gas Mark 4/ 350 degrees F.

Cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs gradually, beating well after each addition. Fold the flour and cocoa into the mixture until you have a smooth, even mix.

Pour the mixture into the tin and level. Bake for 40 minutes or until a knife inserted into the middle comes out clean. Leave to cool 5 minutes in the tin, then turn out onto a wire rack to cool completely.

Now for the frosting / icing. Put the chocolate, milk and tsp of butter in a heatproof bowl set over a pan of hot water. Stir until the chocolate has melted.

Add the icing sugar and beat until smooth. Leave the frosting to cool. I would recommend putting it in the fridge for a while to help it thicken up. Once it’s cool, pour it over the cake, spreading so it covers all the sides. I would advise doing this while the cake is raised on a cooling rack over a clean surface such as a chopping board because you will get a pool of chocolate, as you can see in the photo below.

Sprinkle the cake with desiccated coconut. Put the cake in the fridge to help the icing set.

PLEASE SAVE THE ADDITIONAL FROSTING WHICH POOLS UNDER THE LAMINGTON CAKE. Use a spatula to scrape it up, put it in a bowl and keep it in the fridge. This bowlful of lovely chocolate-coconutty soup will be invaluable when it come to serving the Lamington cake. Put a spoonful of the frosting on top of a slice and pop it in the microwave for ten seconds before serving – delicious!