I went in search of a recipe for this classic Australian cake.
January 26th is Australia Day. I have fond memories of the 7 Australia Days I spent in Australia, usually it was spent on the beach followed by a BBQ with friends. This year it is in the snow & icy conditions of Dublin!
This week in lockdown my 10 year-old daughter was keen to bake something new with me. As it was Australia Day, I thought what Australian cake could we make? So I thought let's make lamingtons! Basically they are a cubed sponge, coated in chocolate icing and dipped in coconut.
I have never made them before but I have eaten them, every bakery sells them in Australia. Generally, I find them dry and not that exciting but we decided to give them a go.
So I went in search of the best recipe. I reached out to my foodie friends in Australia who came with responses like;
"No sorry. Never made them.
They always sold lamingtons for school fund raisers in the 90s so most people our age think of the dodgy ones stuck in the freezer because our mums were forced to buy too many. 🤣🤣🤣"
or
"No my very energetic friend. Always a treat I have enjoyed from the bakery. Have fun cooking, send pics!"
or
"I’ve just asked Mum, it’s something I’ve never made yet I love lamington! "
Well I'm glad to say my friend's mum came back with a photo of the recipe she uses from Australia's Women's weekly in Jan 1975 - The month and year I was born so I just had to make this recipe!
Since 1975 we have moved to metric, so here is the recipe - makes 20
Ingredients
100g butter
150g Sugar
1 tsp Vanilla extract
2 eggs
275g Self raising flour
250ml cup milk.
Method:
- Pre heat oven to 180°C.
- Beat the butter and sugar together in an electric mixer.
- Add the vanilla to the eggs and blend.
- Add the egg mixture into the butter and sugar mixture slowly, as the mixer is still going.
- Fold in the sieved flour, adding the milk to keep it moist.
- Line a 20cm square tin with parchment paper.
- Spread out the mixture into the tin and bake for 35 mins or until a skewer comes out clean.
7. Allow the cake to cook in the tin for 15 mins and then on a cooling rack.
8. Slice into squares, we got 20.
9. Then you want to coat in choc icing or jam and dip in desiccated coconut.
Chocolate icing
It's more of a coating that soaks in rather than an icing.

450g Icing sugar
3 Tbsp cocoa powder
1 Tbsp melted butter
125 mls warm milk
200g desiccated coconut to coat
Method:
- Sieve the icing sugar and cocoa in a bowl.
- Whisk in the milk mixture to make a smooth coating consistency.
- Coat the cake in the icing and dip in lots of coconut.
On my research I was provided with a few tips
- Make the sponge the day before so that it is easy to handle to coat
- Freeze the sliced cake so it is easy to coat- I did this and it worked well!
- when you ice the lamingtons, poke a fork into the piece of cake and dip it in the icing.
- have the coconut fairly deep so you can roll it around easily. It gets very messy. There’ll be coconut everywhere.
- I find them a bit dry so I halved and put cream and jam in the centre - delicious

- If you don't like chocolate, add some hot water to a few table spoons of jam, sieve to remove seeds and use this to coat the lamingtons.
This is how we like them! Served with cream and jam.
I haven't had one since I came back to Ireland in 2008, it was an interesting experiment and we enjoyed making and eating them. Thanks to my friends and their mums who contributed!
Why not give them a go if you are looking for something to bake this lockdown.
Happy Australia Day 2024!
