Aotearoa and Australia · Volume 02, The Ration, the Milk Bar and the Bush Table
The lamington
Queensland
Illustration
- Time
- 25 minutes
- Researched
- Researched from 167 sources in the brief
The State Library of Queensland's own investigation treats the lamington's origin as a genuinely open question, and its lead is followed here. What is verifiable: the cake is named for Charles Cochrane-Baillie, 2nd Baron Lamington, Governor of Queensland from 1896 to 1901; the earliest known printed recipe appears in Queensland Country Life, 17 December 1900, a date that rules out several of the folk-origin stories below simply by predating them. Four competing theories circulate, none proven: a Cloncurry drop-in-gravy accident, sourced only to a 1977 anecdote the library itself calls "almost completely unreliable"; an Ipswich Technical College story directly contradicted by the college opening in 1901, after the 1900 recipe was already in print; a Government House Brisbane story crediting either French chef de cuisine Armand Galland or an unnamed maid, plausible given the scale of the Lamingtons' garden parties but unproven; and a Toowoomba story crediting temporary cook Fanny Young at the Lamingtons' leased Harlaxton House. The famous quote attributing Lord Lamington's own distaste for "poofy woolly biscuits" traces only to a 2007 newspaper article, not to any contemporary source. Similar sponge-chocolate-coconut confections appear across several other food cultures around the same period, the English Neapolitan Roll, the American Cleveland Coconut Bar, Croatian čupavci among them, suggesting the lamington's form may reflect a broader period trend in domestic baking rather than one Queensland invention moment, whichever story is true.
As tradition built it
Makes 20 pieces, to serve 10. The sponge bakes about 25 minutes.
Ingredients
The sponge
- as needed butter and flour, for the pan
- 4 eggs
- 150g caster sugar
- 150g self-raising flour
- 35g cornflour
- 25g soft butter, chopped
- 80ml boiling water
The icing
- 750g icing sugar mixture
- 50g cocoa powder
- 20g soft butter
- 180ml milk
The coating
- 270g desiccated coconut
Method
The sponge
- Heat the oven to 180°C (160°C fan). Grease and flour a 20 by 30cm lamington pan and line the base with baking paper.
- Beat the eggs with an electric mixer until pale. Add the sugar gradually and beat 8 minutes, until it falls in thick ribbons.
- Sift the flour and cornflour together three times. Stir the butter into the boiling water.
- Move the eggs to a large bowl. Sift the flour over and fold it in gently with a balloon whisk or metal spoon, then fold in the butter and water.
- Pour into the pan and bake about 25 minutes, until the sponge springs back in the centre and leaves the sides. Cool on a rack.
- Cut it into 20 even pieces.
Icing and coating
- Sift the icing sugar and cocoa into a heatproof bowl. Add the butter and milk and stir over a pan of simmering water until smooth and thick enough to coat a spoon. Divide between two small bowls.
- Put the coconut in a shallow bowl.
- Dip each piece briefly into the icing on a fork and let it drain, using one bowl for half the pieces and the other for the rest. If the icing thickens, stand it over hot water or add a little milk.
- Toss each piece in the coconut and leave on a rack to set.
Notes
The recipe is The Australian Women's Weekly test kitchen's. Alison Vincent's survey of Australian recipe books and newspapers from 1895 to 1940, in The Aristologist, finds the early lamingtons were butter cakes, creamed or melt and mix, cut into small cubes, and that the easiest icings were cocoa, icing sugar and boiling water. The first printed recipe, in the Queensland Country Life of 17 December 1900, could not be read.
What a modern chef changes
No chef-driven precedent for a fine-dining lamington was found in this research; our own technique work.
Rung 5
Method
- Dip in a proper dark chocolate ganache, chinois-strained smooth, rather than a thin cocoa icing, for real depth and shine.
- Toast the desiccated coconut before rolling, a Big Green Egg or dry pan giving a genuine roasted-coconut flavour a raw coating never offers.
- Fill the sponge's centre with a piped native fruit compote, quandong or Illawarra plum, chinois-strained, giving the finished square a genuine surprise rather than plain sponge throughout.