To celebrate Australia Day this year I have decided to embrace all things Australian in my food choices for our BBQ. The first dish I wanted to present will actually be our Australia Day dessert. There are not too many cakes more Australian than the lamington. Does any other country even make a lamington?? My next question, does anyone even like the lamington? At the risk of being labeled “Un-Australian” I have never been a fan. But like the old “blue singlet” or the tradesman with a butt crack showing, it is as Aussie as cake comes.

To try and give this iconic cake a bit of a facelift, (after all, it has been around for a while now), I have turned it into a super sexy, tarted up “Lamington Macaron.” Now, you can take the girl out of the country, but you can’t take the country out of the girl, and even with her new French makeover, she is still the same good old Aussie Lamington.

In keeping with the Country Woman’s Association style of cooking, the recipe uses Queens coconut essence in the Macaron and canned whipped cream for the filling.

So how does it taste? More delicious than any lamington I have ever tasted.  It’s as sweet and light as a Woolies lamingtons and with that familiar chocolate and coconut flavour.

Ingredients:

3 egg whites (room temp)

¼ caster sugar

1 ¼ cups pure icing sugar

1 cup ground almond

1 ½ t/s coconut essence

Decorating and Filling:

150gm dark cooking chocolate

20gm copha

1 ½ cups coconut

whipped cream

Method:

Line baking trays with paper.

In an electric mixer beat the egg whites until soft peaks form. Slowly add the caster sugar beating well in between each addition.  Beat eggs whites for another 2 minutes on high.

In a separate bowl add sifted icing sugar, almond meal and coconut essence.  Slowly fold the egg whites through this mixture.

Place the mixture into a piping bag and pipe circles on the baking paper.

Preheat the oven to 145 degrees.

Allow the macarons to stand for at least 20 mins prior to cooking.

Cook the macaroon for 15 mins.

For the filling melt the copha and chocolate in a bowl. Dip the cooled macaron in the chocolate and then in a bowl of coconut.  Place the coated sweets in the fridge.  When it is time to serve fill with cream and sandwich together.

Happy Australia Day!

Tommorrow I will do a round up of our Australia Day BBQ!

Oh, and most importantly the winner of the Spicie Foodie Competition is http://annajohnston.com.au/ I paticularly like the way she referred to her top 5 spices as her "latest crushes" I feel the same way about the flavours I add to my food. I am besotted... and then maybe, not so much :) 

A copy of Spicie Foodies "An Epiphany of the Senses" is all yours to enjoy.  Please contact me via email with a mailing address.  Congratulations!