I suppose I have to admit it again-this was totally not my idea. I saw some rainbow centred, white chocolate lamingtons on the interwebs this week (there are a lot of rainbow baked goods these days!) but after admiring the pictures, I could see that there was a fundamental problem with the recipe. Let’s overlook for a second that the writer forgot to say how to make the white chocolate ganache, and the problem with the fact that said white chocolate coated was completely snow white (white chocolate ganache is actually a yellowy cream colour). No, the biggest problem with these fabulously multicoloured cakes was that they were not made with sponge cake at all. Let me get this clear. A lamington that is not made with sponge cake is not a lamington. It is simply not right to sandwich pieces of butter cake together with jam, roll them in a chocolate mixture and toss them in coconut, and call them lamingtons. Particularly when there is no whipped cream at all involved.
Obviously, it fell to me to rectify the problem.
No dramas. Now I confess that these little babies are a bit of a step away from traditional chocolate lamingtons. If you want to make the easiest most fuss free lamington experience ever, this post probably isn’t for you. I suggest you go check out my amazing lamington cupcakes instead.
You see, I really liked the idea of a lamington which would be completely white on the outside and you would not know about the wonderful colours inside until the lamington was cut or bitten open. That really means though that the filling has to be enclosed inside of the cake before it is ganached and rolled in coconut. But simply sandwiching the cakes together with a meensy layer of jam would make for a pretty boring interior. Like I said, lamingtons have to have cream. Only cream is squidgy, and rolling something filled with cream in ganache and then coconut would be a messy nightmare. So obviously, the cream needed to be stabilised. And naturally there also needed to be jam. Then it hit me that the cream and jam could be in stripes, rather than layers. If you cut the lamington in the right direction, you would then get a really beautiful centre.
See? I’m not wrong.
I’ve made white chocolate lamingtons before, and I’m pretty fond of them. But now I’m proud to say that I have in my repertoire a white chocolate lamington which has not one, but two wonderful surprises inside, and is soft and luscious to boot. Oh yeah, and did you notice? I’ve Adriano Zumboed the white chocolate into being quite a bit whiter than usual – but this is totally optional.
I guess I’ll only be making these ones for special occasions (and gay pride week!), but it would be easy enough to cheat and make simpler rainbow lamingtons – all you need to do is use a 18 cm square tin to make a deep sponge, cut this into cubes and roll in the ganache and coconut. Then you can cut them open and fill them with jam and cream just like a regular lamington.
Rainbow White Chocolate Lamingtons
Rainbow Sponge Cake
ingredients
3 large eggs
2 tbsp melted butter
2 tbsp milk
3/4 cup caster sugar
1 cup flour
2 tsp baking powder
red, blue, yellow, green, orange, purple food colouring (or at least red blue and yellow, you can mix these for the secondary colours) gel colouring is best but liquid colour will work too. I used Wilton colours.
mixing
Line the base and sides of a 25 cm square cake tin with baking paper. The easiest way to do this is to fold the sides of the paper up like you are wrapping half a present.
Combine all the ingredients for all the food colouring in a large bowl and, using a hand held or stand mixer, beat on high speed for three minutes. Divide the mixture evenly into six small bowls and tint each one a different colour of the rainbow. If you are using gel-the colour then you will not need more than 1/10 of a teaspoon of each colour – about 1/3 of your little fingernail. Blend the colour was a little bit of the cake mixture first to homogenise and then mix of this in with the rest of the batter in the bowl.
Working with teaspoons of each colour at the time, drop the colours randomly all over the bottom of the lined cake tin. I started with four spread out blobs of blue, followed by four of yellow in a slightly different pattern, and so on. When bottom of the pan is covered, start placing teaspoons of colour between the original blobs, choosing colours which contrast with the colours underneath.
Once you have placed all of the teaspoons of different colours of mixture in the tin, use a wooden skewer or toothpick to create a marble pattern in the mixture. Do this by dragging the toothpick in a swirly path through the different colours. Remember not to over-do it though, because otherwise your colours will become muddy.
It will look like there is not much depth of mixture in the tin, but don’t worry, the mixture will definitely rise enough!
Bake the sponge cake at 190°C for 15 minutes or until sponge cake has risen well and had begun to shrink away from the sides of the tin. Turn the sponge cake upside down on a wire rack too cool, and peel the baking paper off the bottom of the cake.
* if you are making regular lamingtons, line a 17 cm² cake tin with baking paper, use the same technique to drop in the coloured mixtures and bake the sponge cake for approximately 25 minutes or until the sponge cake has risen well and begun to shrink away from the sides of the tin.
Assembling the Rainbow White Chocolate Lamingtons
ingredients
Rainbow Sponge Cake
Stabilised whipped cream and raspberry jam (recipe below)
White Chocolate Ganache (recipe below)
200g shredded coconut, for rolling
assembling (remember to look for the *s if you are making the simple version!)
When the cake is cold, trim the sides of the cake so that you are left with a 20 cm² cake. Divide the cake further into 16 5x5cm pieces.
* for simple Lamingtons, just trim the cake to 16 cm square and cut into 9 even cubes and proceed to the ganache/coconut step.
Place a large sheet of cling wrap over a sponge roll pan or other flat bottomed pan. The pan needs to be bigger than 10×20 cm but small enough to conveniently put in the refrigerator. Set eight of the pieces of cake in two rows in the middle of the sheet on cling wrap. The sheet of cling wrap needs to be big enough to wrap up and over the top of a double layer of the cake. Push the pieces of cake snugly against each other. Make the stabilised whipped cream and stabilised raspberry jam.
Load the stabilised whipped cream into a disposable piping bag, snip the tip so the opening is about 5mm wide, and pipe 8 mm wide lines of the whipped cream down the length of each row of cakes. You should pipe a line of whipped cream down each outer edge of each row of cakes, and one line in the centre of each row of cakes. There will be two gaps between each of the three lines of whipped cream.
Load the stabilised raspberry jam into another disposable piping bag and snip the tip. Hope a line of raspberry jam into the gaps between the lines of whipped cream. You will have two lines of raspberry jam per row of cakes.
Place the remaining eight pieces of cake on top of the two rows on the sheet of cling wrap. Press the tops down gently. Wrap the edges of the cling wrap up and over the top of the cakes, trying to be firm but gentle. Refrigerate the cakes for at least two hours or up to 24 hours so that the whipped cream and raspberry jam has firmly set.
Make the white chocolate ganache about an hour before you want to use it. It takes a while for the ganache to cool and develop the right consistency.
Pour the cool white chocolate ganache into a deep, 15cm round bowl. Tip 1 cup of the coconut into a shallow dish, and replenish 1/2 a cup of coconut as needed. Unwrap the cakes and using a sharp knife, slice between them to separate.
Working with one cake at a time, gently dip in the white chocolate ganache until all of the sides are completely coated (a dipping fork with two long thin prongs is ideal for this). Lift the cake from the ganache, allow it to trip for a few seconds, then transfer to the coconut. Gently roll the cake in the coconut to coat all sides, patting the coconut into the ganache with your fingers. Work relatively quickly, because they ganache will still tend to flow. Set each Lamington on a sheet of baking paper and chill for at least 30 minutes to set.
* for simple Lamingtons, when they are set, split in half and sandwich together with regular jam and cream.
Stabilised whipped cream and raspberry jam
White Chocolate Ganache
2 tbsp extra virgin coconut oil
