Wednesday 28 January 2009

lamington cupcakes

Not only was yesterday the first day of Chinese New Year (YAY), but it was also Australia Day. I mostly did CNY things, but I did also bake some lamington cupcakes, because lamingtons are one of my favourite snacks ever, and one I've not had in years. I used to love buying them from the local bakery on the way to school every morning, if I was very lucky they'd have the ones with the chocolate sponge, they were fantastic. I also used to love the fundraising drives, where you'd order a box or five of delicious, soft lamingtons, and mum would always put at least a box in the freezer, to save for darker, less delicious days when there were no fresh lamingtons to be had.

I baked these as cupcakes because I wasn't sure how the recipe would hold up as a sponge cake, especially as I saw several vegan sponge recipes that were all "it will fall apart!" And it seemed to work for Carla a few weeks ago. They were satisfying, but I think I'm ready to give proper lamingtons a go, because they really do need to be six sides of deliciousness.


lamington cupcakes

Lamington Cupcakes

ingredients
2 cup SR flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 cup castor sugar
3 chinese soup spoons applesauce
50gm or so of nuttelex
¾ish cup of milk

method
Cream together the sugar, applesauce and butter. Combine with sifted flourand baking powder. Slowly mix in the milk.

Divide in to twelve cupcakes, and bake at 180C for 17 minutes.

Leave to mostly cool. Whilst cupcakes are mostly warm but heading towards cooled, dip in chocolate mixture (leave to soak for thirty seconds to a minute), and coat in desiccated coconut. You may need to cool in the fridge for half an hour to solidify the chocolate, depending on the ambient temperature. In Perth yesterday it was pretty warm!

chocolate mixture
1 cup icing sugar
¼ish cup of boiling water
2 tbl cocoa powder

Mix together until suitably runny.


NOTE regarding the Chinese soup spoons: these are perfect for egg substitution, I tend to use one overflowing spoon of applesauce per egg in a biscuit and cake recipies. They're something like a dollar from your local Chinese grocer, or use a soupspoon:tablespoon with a ratio of 1:1.5

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

That looks nomalicious. omnomnomnom.

Anonymous said...

Looks great. But what's nuttelex?

x said...

Nuttelex is what we use in place of things likle Earth Balance, it's basically a butter subsitute here in Oz!

And lovely lamington cupcakes! I have been meaning to make some lamingtons but thought they wouldn't hold up as g-free!

Anonymous said...

I want one! :P they look amazing

Cindy said...

Cute! I love the Chinese soup spoon/egg replacement tip - will have to dig my cheap plastic ones out next time I'm baking. :-)

steph said...

It was pretty nomlicious, J! I will make some for you sooooon.

Ricki, like Mandee said, Nuttelex is our butter substitute.

Mandee, I think this recipe would go okay gluten-free. It's basically a modification of my usual cake recipe, which works fine gf if I add a bit more milk.

steph said...

Cindy, if you're baking cakes doing the soup spoon thing, you need to use half a tsp of baking powder, too. No need for it with biscuits, though.

Eloise said...

i made vegan lamingtons for aus day too! :D

i just made a buttercake with nuttelex, and it didn't work 100% because i made it up as i went kinda, but they were indeed squares of cake coated in chocolate and coconut... so they passed ;)

(easier than trying for a pavlova. next year maybe!)

steph said...

Hi Eloise, yeah, it's the chocolate and coconut that really makes it, which explains why I never really got into the strawberry ones! Let us know if you ever try a pav, that would be awesome.

Anonymous said...

Yum, these look seriously delicious! I've never had lamingtons before, either.

steph said...

Hey Hannah,

The best lamingtons are very light sponge, with very runny choclate sauce that soaks carefully into the sponge, so when you bite into it the coconut and the chocolate stick to your teeth. You should try them, they are awesome.

Sarah said...

On another note, have you seen this book that is coming out???

Vegan Gluten Free Cupcakes

Just thought you might be interested!