b a t t l e c a t . n e t

In honour of Australia Day I figured I’d make something tasty and Australian to share with my housemates and to take to German class tomorrow.

If I’d thought ahead, I’d have protected my clothing with the lovely apron that Sarah M gave me, but I forgot. Instead, here’s a photo from when I baked pavlova at D’s place for Weihnachten (Christmas).

There was one major problem – I couldn’t actually bake anything since the oven in my current flat has no temperature control. Actually, most things in the flat have some fault that one needs to overcome.

For example, the washing machine:

Everytime you put a load of laundry on, you have to wedge the door in place with a piece of wood and strap it all down.

It’s not really the weather to barbecue and while I’d love to whip up some proper meat pies^, or to bake Anzac biscuits or a pavlova, they all required baking.

So, in the end I chose to make lamingtons, as I could buy a premade vanilla cake and then do the messy bits of chocolate coating and coconut shaking.  Even though lamingtons are fairly traditional Australian fare, I can’t remember ever making them as a kid, so this entire process was new to me.

I bought two vanilla “jumbo” cakes so I’d have enough lamingtons for hungry housemates and classmates. Also cocoa, powdered sugar, butter and coconut.

I chopped the cake into slices and took the edges and top off the cake. After making a couple of bigger lamingtons I cut the slices in half to make more and for a greater surface area of chocolate.

The recipe that I based the chocolate sauce on was from the Joy of Baking.  As I have no cup measures, I estimated the proportions of cocoa, sugar and butter and used boiling water instead of milk.  I’ll probably ease back on the amount of cocoa I use next time as the sauce was a little on the bitter side.

Actually, I almost brought some plastic cup measures with me from Australia, but they ended up in the 20kg of stuff I’d have shipped over if I moved to Germany all over again box. I have no regrets but I am considering making a list for when I make my inevitable next international move.

The chocolate sauce needs to be on the runny side. You want it to soak into the cake and hold onto the coconut. The butter in the icing helps it to solidify after a while.

Use a couple of forks to roll the pieces of cake in the chocolate sauce. Let any excess sauce drip off.

Then cover the chocolate covered cake in dessicated coconut.

(I’m pretty sure that that step symbolises Australia’s not-so-happy colonial past.)

If you have a wire tray you can put the lamingtons on that while the icing sets a little. I had no problems letting them set all piled up on a plate, I just made sure they had lots of coconut on them so they wouldn’t stick together.

Yum! Blurry lamingtons! Now for a cup of tea!

* Well, I assembled Australian cakes.

^ Proper meat pies with tomato sauce and an iced coffee are my major Australian craving that can’t be easily satisfied in Berlin. Anyone know if I can get Australian-style pies at all in Germany?