Little Lime Lemon Lamingtons

                            little lime lemon lamingtons 

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Lemon Lamingtons??? Lamingtons are traditionally cubes of sponge cake dipped in chocolate icing and rolled in coconut, but according to the Wikipedia entry on Lamingtons 'The raspberry variety is more common in New Zealand, while a lemon variety has been encountered in Australia.' 

Just as I was thinking "this Australian has never encountered a lemon lamington", I opened a new Australian Women's Weekly cookbook "Cakebaking" and there on page 32 is 'lemon lamingtons'. Have I missed a trend? 

My broken ribs are still healing and in a "now we have one I baked previously" moment I whipped out a lemon buttercake from the freezer. Plus with more limes in the garden at the moment than lemons it seemed natural to make a batch of lime/lemon butter too. Put the two together and we have my version of a lemon lamington...

bumper crop of limes in the garden this year

Little Lime Lemon Lamingtons

Ingredients

1x plain lemon butter cake or sponge cake cut into cubes (I used a ruler as a cutting guide)

1x batch of lime/lemon butter (recipe below)

2 1/2 cups shredded or desiccated unsweentened coconut 

desiccated and shredded coconut

Method

Pour your lime/lemon butter into a pie dish. Place the shredded coconut on a dinner plate. Dip cubes of cake firstly into the lime/lemon butter, then gently roll in coconut.

You can serve them straight away, but I think they are nicer when you allow them to sit for a short while to allow the lime/lemon butter to sink into the cake a little.

Lime Lemon Butter (Curd)

 Makes 1 1/2 cups

Ingredients
3 large egg yolks
Zest of one small lime and 1/2 of one lemon
1/4 cup of lime juice
6 tablespoons sugar
4 tablespoons butter, cold and diced

Method
Combine yolks,  zest,  juice, and sugar in a small saucepan. Whisk to combine. Set over medium heat, and stir constantly with a wooden spoon, making sure to stir sides and bottom of pan. Cook until mixture is thick enough to coat back of wooden spoon, 5 to 7 minutes.

Remove saucepan from heat. Add the butter, one piece at a time, stirring with the wooden spoon until consistency is smooth. Strain.
Transfer mixture to a medium bowl. Lay a sheet of plastic wrap directly on the surface of the curd to avoid a skin from forming; wrap tightly. Let cool; refrigerate until firm and chilled, at least 1 hour. Store, refrigerated in an airtight container, up to 2 days.

Adapted from Martha Stewart's lemon curd

Robot Tea Infuser

My best friend and I both love our tea infuser robots, they're not super practical for everyday use as you can only use large leaf tea inside your robots stomach. But, but, but they make you smile and do look cute just hanging around.

Happy Baking :)

Raspberry and Tangelo fruit butter recipes Fruit butter/curd tips and storage.

Ode to Bounty Bars Cupcakes

                                  ode to bounty bars cupcakes

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Reading MasterChef magazine I saw a recipe for chocolate coconut lemon bars, made as a tribute to 'Bounty Bars' the popular chocolate bar produced by Mars. 

Hmmm, I can see why the food editor chose to use the lemon (using the left over egg yolks from the recipe to make lemon curd) & I do love the combination of lemon & coconut, but I felt that's "not really like a Bounty bar".

bounty bars, thickly coated in milk chocolate

The most popular Bounty bars are thickly coated in milk chocolate with a moist coconut filling, the appeal is in the simplicity of umptious milk chocolate combined with soft coconut. Besides that you get two mini bars in each bar & you always feel like you are getting an extra treat!

Today's recipe loses the "lemon", bumps up the vanilla, swaps the melted dark chocolate for milk chocolate ganache and changes from 'bars' to 'cupcakes'. With small amount of flour in the recipe it's ideal to convert to gluten free too. I've included tips on storing & using leftover egg yolks. 

Bounty Bar trivia;

Nigella Lawson has a recipe for deep fried Bounty Bars in her cookbook Nigella Bites. 

2009 saw a trade mark application from Mars to protect the Bounty Bar shape thrown out of court when the judge ruled the rounded end shape is "devoid of any distinctive character" 

On to the recipe... it's any easy one, the cake batter is similar to financiers and friands there is no mixers involved and it results in beautifully moist cakes. 

Ode to Bounty Bars Cupcakes 

Ingredients

150g unsalted butter, melted (5.29 oz) 

120g (1 2/3 cups) shredded unsweetened coconut 

200g (1 1/4 cups) icing sugar (confectioners sugar) 

50g (1/3 cup) self-raising flour

1 tsp pure vanilla extract or essence

1/4 tsp salt

6 egg whites 

Method 

Pre heat oven to 180C. Line a 12 cup cupcake pan with paper liners. 

Place the coconut in a large bowl, sift over flour, icing sugar, and salt. Stir your egg whites with a fork just to break up the whites a bit. Add the cooled melted butter, egg white and vanilla to the coconut and stir until just combined. 

Divide between the paper liners in your prepared tray and bake for 18 to 22 minutes until the edges are golden brown and the centres are "just set"... you want these little cakes to be moist.

Remove from oven & transfer to a cooking rack. Once cool spread with milk chocolate ganache.

Ganache 

makes one cup

1/2 cup cream (125ml)

200g milk chocolate (chopped)

2 tsp corn syrup (optional)

In a small saucepan bring cream to the boil. Remove from heat, wait for the bubbles to subside and chopped chocolate and stir until smooth. If you want the ganache to keep a "high gloss", stir in the corn syrup now.

Leave the ganache to cool until it reaches spreadable consistency, it will look like this...

ganache ready to spread

Alternatives; Make it even simpler by omitting the ganache altogether, adding a cup of milk chocolate chips to the cake batter, dust cooled cakes with icing sugar.

Gluten Free; Swap the flour for the same amount of gluten free self-raising flour. If you are baking for someone with celiac disease, check that your chocolate and other ingredients haven't been processed on machinery that processes wheat products. 

Using your leftover egg yolks;

Store the egg yolks for up to five days by putting them in a small container, cover with cold water and seal the container and refrigerate. The yolks will take on a slightly white appearance, this is normal, drain off water when ready to use.

Leftover egg yolks can be used to; glaze pies/pastries, make fruit curds & butters, use to make mayonnaise/hollandaise/bernaise, moussaka, add extra yolks to quiches, scrambled eggs & omelettes, custard or pastry cream, enrich cake batters, pasta dough, whip up a bowl of carbonara or even a make a face mask!

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