From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- For other uses of "Lamington", see Lamington (disambiguation).
Lamingtons are a type of sponge cake (or more traditionally, butter cake) squares, coated in a layer of flavoured gelatin (or traditionally chocolate icing or strawberry jam), then desiccated coconut. They are sometimes served as two halves with a layer of cream between them, and are commonly found in New Zealand and Australian bakeries. Like many recipes common to both countries, there is dispute about who 'invented' the lamington, but it is fairly ubiquitous in both. The strawberry variety is more common in New Zealand, while sightings of a lemon variety have occurred in Australia.
The gelatin is a thin mixture, into which squares of sponge (one cookbook states 4cm per side) are dipped, and the gelatin is absorbed into the outermost layers of the sponge where it sets. (Similarly, the strawberry jam or chocolate icing is absorbed into the sponge.) The squares are then dipped into the coconut and left to dry.
Name
Lamingtons are most likely named after Charles Baillie, 2nd Baron Lamington, who served as governor of Queensland from 1896 to 1901. However, the precise reasoning behind this is not known, and stories vary. According to one account, the dessert resembled the homburg hats favoured by Baron Lamington. Another tells of a banquet in Cloncurry during which the baron accidentally dropped a block of sponge cake into a dish of gravy, and then threw it over his shoulder, causing it to land in a bowl of dessicated coconut. A diner thought of replacing the gravy with chocolate and thusly created the lamington as we know it today.
Ironically, Baron Lamington was known to have hated the dessert that had been named in his honour, once referring to them as "those bloody poofy woolly biscuits".
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