Easy Lamingtons

Lamingtons are chocolate and coconut covered sponge cakes. A whipped cream filling makes this version even more moist and delicious and if you start with pre-made ingredients, you can make these Easy Lamingtons in about 15 minutes.

My first experience with Lamingtons was seeing them at a church event in Cambodia. They looked so amazing but I wasn’t fast enough to get a taste. When I looked up what they were, I found out they were made by Australian settlers to rescue stale cake.

This is a recipe I whipped up just before I left Cambodia. It was one of the many things I made with left over ingredients. I had enough ingredients to make this sponge cake from Hungry Couple New York. I made mine in a two 8 x 8 inch pans and cooked them until a toothpick came out clean. I cut each pan into 9 slices.

If you want to save even more time, start with a frozen pound cake. Slice it into 1 inch thick slices and then cut the slices in halves (or fourths if you want your Lamingtons to be small).

I had a bottle of Hershey’s chocolate syrup in my refrigerator so I used that as my chocolate syrup. Because you’re dipping the cake in the syrup, it’s important that it either be stale or frozen. Freezing the cake before dipping keeps it from crumbling.

You dip the cake in chocolate first and then coconut. I put mine on a wire rack to let the excess chocolate drip off while I made the whipped cream filling.

The whipped cream doesn’t need to be that sweet because the cake is already pretty sweet. You can also skip the whipped cream altogether (traditional Lamingtons don’t have it) or use whipped topping. I like the balance of chocolate, coconut and whipped cream and I think the Easy Lamingtons look prettier with it.

I’m told this Raspberry Lemon Zinger Cake from Confessions of a Cookbook Queen is the same as red lamingtons.