Happy new year to you all! I know it is February now and should be saying Happy Valentine’s instead but  I have not posted since November last year. So, let me take this opportunity to wish you all the best this year. Yes, it has been a while since my last blog post. The weeks leading up to the Christmas season were busy. Soon after Christmas, hubby, son and I went overseas to visit family and friends in the Philippines. It was a great holiday and absolutely happy catching up with them after long nine years. Nine years! Imagine the itinerary we had in sixteen days. It sure was hectic but very much worth it. We arrived back  in Sydney just the week before Australia Day weekend. I was still in holiday mode so, thank goodness for the long weekend. Did not do much but chilled at home. To get into the Australia Day celebration, my son requested some baked lamingtons. I have a couple of recipes for lamingtons but thought I would try this one I saw on Good Food’s Facebook page, Double Chocolate Lamingtons by Dan Lepard. I certainly got curious because apparently, one reader called the inclusion of cocoa in the cake a ‘sacrilege’, therefore very un-lamington, if I may coin my own term. Well, it had me at ‘double’ chocolate so off I went to the kitchen.

I was reading through the list of ingredients and was trying to imagine how it will taste based on the amount of sugar and chocolate in the cake, plus the coconut and icing in the coating. A little too sweet, I thought so I made some adjustments with the amount and used really dark chocolate to balance the sweetness. Here is another thing. I was not at all planning to blog about this so I did not take photos using my DSLR camera. I took some photos using my dependable mobile phone camera just so I could post it on my Facebook timeline while wishing everyone a Happy Australia Day. Well, what do you know? The lamington cake turned out to be really delicious! It was like a brownie lamington, my son said. Moist and  very chocolatey cake rolled in shredded coconut. Honestly, you do not have to wait for next Australia Day as these will be good to have for morning or afternoon tea, or even dessert any time of the year.

Ingredients:

For the cake:

• 3 cups caster sugar
• 1/2 cup cocoa powder
• 75ml milk
• 50g unsalted butter
• 50g dark chocolate (I used Lindt 85% cocoa)
• 50ml vegetable oil
• 4 medium eggs
• 3 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 1/2 cups plain flour
• 3 tsp baking powder

For the coating:

• 50ml cold milk
• 175ml boiling water
• 200g dark chocolate, finely chopped (I used Lindt 85% cocoa)
• 2 cups icing sugar
• 2-3 cups finely shredded coconut

Method:

1. Heat the oven to 170C degrees (150C fan-forced). Line the base of a deep, 20cm square cake tin with non-stick paper.
2. Put the sugar and cocoa in a bowl and beat in the milk.
3. Melt the butter and chocolate in a saucepan, and add to the sugar mix along with the oil.
4. Beat in the eggs until smooth and stir in vanilla.
5. Mix in the flour and baking powder.
6. Pour into the prepared tin and bake for an hour. Check if cake is done by inserting a toothpick in the centre of cake. If it comes out clean, cake is done. Oven temperatures vary so personally, I like checking my baking 10 minutes before recommended baking time. Remove from oven, cool in the tin.
7. For the coating, mix the cocoa and milk until smooth, whisk in the boiling water. Stir in the chocolate until melted. Whisk in the icing sugar until dissolved and pour into a mixing bowl.
8. Cut the cake into nine pieces. Dunk each piece in the chocolate coating and fish out with two forks.
9. Roll in coconut and leave to set.