Lamington Cake

 

I actually never ever heard about this cake before. Until I visit ncc-indonesia.com, which featured this cake in one of it's cake recipe. 

A lamington is a dessert of Australian origin. It consists of squares of sponge cake coated first in a layer of traditionally chocolate sauce, then in desiccated coconut. 

The ncc's cake is the one modified, with chocolate cake as the base cake. I then seek for further reference of this cake, which for me is quite easy to follow, and taste-wise look good, since it has a sweet, savory, and salty taste from chocolate and desiccated coconut. 

There are many variations of this Lamington cake, one of the example is the one ncc has. Most recipes also use jams to fill in its layer. They usually use strawberry jam to get the sour taste so the cake's taste would be very rich. 

For my starter Lamington cake, I choose to use Mardi Michels's recipe which features in Jamie Oliver's site. This recipe is very easy and you can use all ingredients found in your pantry.  

I did a modification, though. When the recipe calls out for 1 1/2 tsp of baking powder, I used 1 tsp of emulsifier. Since based on my experience, using emulsifier for sponge cake will give a better cake texture, and I also use my own chocolate icing recipe. It still tastes great, though. 

Ingredients

For the cake4 eggs
200g (1 cup) granulated sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
200g (1 ⅓ cups) cake flour
1 teaspoons emulsifier
110g margarine, melted and cooled

For the icing
200 gr dark cooking chocolate
100 gr whip cream powder (I use wippy cream haan)
200 ml mineral water
50 gr butter

Topping
Around 6 cups of desiccated coconut

Directions 

For the cake

1. Preheat the oven to 350˚F/180˚C/gas 2. Grease and flour a 22 x 22 cm pan, lining the base of the pan with parchment paper. 
3. Beat the eggs, sugar and vanilla in a large bowl with an hand mixer (medium-high speed). Add emulsifier, then continue to mix until pale and thick (around 3 minutes). 
4. Sift the flour and baking powder over the egg and sugar mixture, and use a rubber spatula to gently combine the dry ingredients. 
5.  Add the melted butter, about ⅓ at atime, gently mixing with a rubber spatula until completely combined, then pour the mixture into the prepared pan.
6. Bake for 25 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the middle of the cake comes out clean. 
7. The cake should spring back when lightly touched in the centre. Turn cake onto a wire rack to cool.
8. Cut cake into even, bit-sized pieces about 4-5cm.  You will probably end up discarding the edge pieces, as they won’t be completely square. At this stage you can refrigerate the cake for a few hours or leave the cake overnight in an airtight container, because a slightly less fresh cake will be easier to dip in the chocolate icing.
9. When you are ready to dip the cakes, set up an area large enough to accommodate bowls for the cake pieces, the chocolate icing, the coconut and also a large tray topped with parchment paper and a cooling rack. 10. You will need to work quickly to dip the cakes so having everything organised in advance will help.

For the icing

1. In a large saucepan, dissolve the whip cream powder with mineral water, then bring to boil. 

2. Add chopped dark cooking chocolate until all chocolate melt, and mix altogether. 

3. Turn of the heat, then add the butter quickly into the mixture. 

4. Working quickly, using a fork, dip the cake cubes into the chocolate mix and roll them around with the tines of the fork to completely coat. 

5. Drain any excess mixture off the cakes then drop them in the coconut and roll them around lightly to coat evenly with coconut. 

6. Set the cake cubes on the cooling rack placed over parchment paper to drain. You can refrigerate the cakes to help set the icing, then bring them to room temperature before serving.

Desiccated coconut
1. Buy the grated coconut in your nearest market. Trust me, it helps a lot! LOL. 
2. Place the coconut flakes in a food processor if you want smaller flakes. Add 1/4 cup to 1/2 cup of salt with the coconut in the food processor if you want a salty one. 
3. Spread the coconut on a baking sheet, in a thin layer. Warm it in a 200F oven until dried. Make sure not to overbrown the flakes.

Molten Lava Cake

One thing you need after a series of sleepless nite and hospitalization thing, is of course a chocolaty dessert for balancing your meals. 

Why oh why, my brain keep thinking about this dessert, which made me drooling after blogwalking and finding inspiration for a food styling. This dessert called : Molten Lava Cake. 

I used to eat this dessert in the weddings, malls, or hotels. Never once I had in mind, to try out a recipe for this. Do you wonder why? I was afraid to fail. LOL. 

It happened, though. This is not my first time making it, but the first time succeed, after trying twice. The first was last week. The second is today. Yippie..finally. Though it's not 100% succeed, but at least I still got the lava came out. The first was overbaked. Yeah rite. Waste of time. Huhuhu. 

Anyway, this recipe came from Mbak Hesti's Kitchen blog, because I thought that was the easiest recipe I could follow. 

The original name from her blog was fondant, which she got from bbcgoodfood's Gordon Ramsay. 

Ingredients 

50g melted butter, for brushing

cocoa powder, for dusting

200g good-quality dark chocolate, chopped into small pieces

200g butter, in small pieces

200g golden caster sugar

4 eggs and 4 yolks

200g plain flour

Caramel sauce (see 'Goes well with') and vanilla ice cream or orange sorbet, to serve

Directions :

1. First get your moulds ready. Using upward strokes, heavily brush the melted butter all over the inside of the pudding mould. Place the mould in the fridge or freezer. Brush more melted butter over the chilled butter, then add a good spoonful of cocoa powder into the mould. Tip the mould so the powder completely coats the butter. Tap any excess cocoa back into the jar, then repeat with 1 the next mould.
2. Place a bowl over a pan of barely simmering water, then slowly melt the chocolate and butter together. Remove bowl from the heat and stir until smooth. Leave to cool for about 10 mins.
3. In a separate bowl whisk the eggs and yolks together with the sugar until thick and pale and the whisk leaves a trail; use an electric whisk if you want. Sift the flour into the eggs, then beat together.
4. Pour the melted chocolate into the egg mixture in thirds, beating well between each addition, until all the chocolate is added and the mixture is completely combined to a loose cake batter.
5. Tip the fondant batter into a jug, then evenly divide between the moulds. The fondants can now be frozen for up to a month and cooked from frozen. Chill for at least 20 mins or up to the night before. To bake from frozen, simply carry on as stated, adding 5 mins more to the cooking time.
6. Heat oven to 200C/fan 180C/gas 6. Place the fondants on a baking tray, then cook for 10-12 mins until the tops have formed a crust and they are starting to come away from the sides of their moulds. Remove from the oven, then leave to sit for 1 min before turning out.
7. Loosen the fondants by moving the tops very gently so they come away from the sides, easing them out of the moulds. Tip each fondant slightly onto your hand so you know it has come away, then tip back into the mould ready to plate up.
8. Starting from the middle of each plate, squeeze a spiral of caramel sauce – do all the plates you need before you go on to the next stage.
9. Sit a fondant in the middle of each plate. Using a large spoon dipped in hot water, scoop a ‘quenelle’ of ice cream.
10. Carefully place the ice cream on top of the fondant, then serve immediately. Repeat with the rest of the fondants.

Trust me. If have a bad day or not-so-well-planned day, take a spoon of it, and you'll be amazed by the happy feeling inside that comes so fast! At least for a while, though. Hahaha

Ontbijkoek

My handphone has been 'sick' for about 4 days, and I was surprised to found out, I am actually okay without it. LOL

So the days I didn't get to be able to type or browse, what I did was exploring more about a cake, a dutch cake, which my mom was asked to make, once, and it happened that my hubby's friend also asked if I could make it. 

This cake is called Ontbijkoek. The dutch usually eat it during breakfast, as ontbijkoek literally means breakfast cake. 

The dutch usually serve it with a thick butter layer on top, as a replacement for bread. 

Here, in Indonesia, youngsters are very unfamiliar with the cake. The elder are the ones who usually know it, and really know how it tastes, as our country once were civilized by the dutch for 3.5 years. 

What I made, is an Indonesian ontbijkoek modifications, which usually made with sponge cake method. 

Again, I got the recipe from Mbak Ricke's blog, my all time favorite blogger. 

Ingredients

5 eggs 

1 teaspoon cake emulsifier

100 gram brown sugar/ palm sugar

50 gram granulated sugar

100 gram all purpose flour

25 gram corn flour

20 gram skim milk

2 teaspoon spekoek powder

75 gram of melted margarine/ butter

Almond slice for topping

Method :

1. Preheat the oven to 175C.
2. Line a loaf tin.
3. Beat in the eggs, granulated sugar, palm sugar, cake emulsifier in bowl with a low speed mixer until well combined. 
4. In a separate bowl, sift all purpose flour, spekoek powder, corn flour, and skim milk. 
5. Combine the sifted ingredients and eggs mixture, and fold in using a spatula. 
6. Add melted margarine/ butter until no margarine/butter left in the bottom of the bowl. 
7. Pour in the prepared loaf tin and place in the preheated oven.
8. Bake for 20 minutes, or until a skewer comes out clean.
9. Leave to cool for 5 minutes in the tin, then take it out and leave to cool completely on a wire rack. 

If you want to experience a dutch breakfast long time ago, enjoy a slice of it in the early morning with a cup of hot tea. Yummm...