Mini Lamington Cupcakes

It's Australia Day on 26th of January and we all like to celebrate with some Australian haute cuisine. This means there'll be plenty of snags (sausages), lamb chops and shrimp (prawns) on the barbie (barbecue), Vegemite sangas (sandwiches), pavlova and lamingtons. I can remember years ago, the only fundraising that my school and church did was a good old lamington drive. This involved getting sheets and sheets of sponge cake, ordered from the local bakery. Cutting them up into smaller, individual sizes and dipping them into that glossy, runny chocolate icing and rolling them in coconut. There was often a huge production line of Mums and daughters, cutting, dipping and rolling and a lot of chatting and laughing going on.

That was usually the only time you ate a lamington or if you were lucky to have enough money to buy one from the local cake shop. They're still pretty popular and oh so simple. This was a recipe from my "Classic Country Collection" by Lady Flo Bjelke-Petersen. I thought of making them into individual cupcakes instead of the sheet cake just to make my life easier. It worked really well. I had my own little production line happening.

Mini Lamington Cupcakes
(from "Classic Country Collection" by Lady Flo Bjelke-Petersen)

125g (4 oz) butter
125g (4 oz) sugar
1/4 tsp vanilla
2 eggs
250g (8 oz) self raising flour
pinch salt
1/2 cup milk

Icing:
250g (8 oz) icing sugar (confectioner's sugar)
6-8 level tsp cocoa
1 tsp butter
few drops vanilla
coconut for coating (I used shredded coconut this time)

1. Beat butter and sugar until creamy. Add vanilla. Add eggs, one at a time and beat well.
2. Sift flour and salt together.
3. Add flour alternately with milk to the mixture.
4. Bake in a 180 deg C (350 deg F) oven for 30 minutes in a lamington tin (I used a mini muffin pan.)
5. Allow to cool. Cut cake in squares.

Icing:

1. Sift icing sugar into a bowl. Blend in cocoa with a little boiling water. Add a few drops of vanilla.
2. Add butter and mix well, adding more boiling water until icing is a runny consistency.
3. Dip each cake into icing and then roll in coconut. Set aside until firm.

I might just split some of these in half and spread with a little raspberry jam and whipped cream, just because.