Lamingtons

 

The work of my 15 year old son, made on food tech class at school.

Quite proud of him. They were given a task to create something distinguished from Australia’s tables and he and his cooking partner chose Lamingtons. There are few claims about the origin of the Lamingtons and all relate to a piece of Australian history:

• One story has it that the Lamingtons were named after Lord Lamington who served as a governor of Queensland from 1896 to 1901. According to this story they were first served in Toowoomba when he took his entourage to Harlaxton House to escape the steamy heat of Brisbane.

• Another story claims that Lamingtons were invented by the French born chef Armand Gallad who was a head chef at Queensland’s Government House. At one stage he was called upon at short notice to provide something sweet for unexpected guests. Gallad cut up some left over French vanilla sponge cake baked the day before, dipped the slices in chocolate and rolled them in coconut (Coconut was not widely used in European cooking at that time, but was known to Gallad whose wife was from Tahiti where coconut was widely used in cooking). Once Lady Lamington tasted the sweet, she then asked for the recipe.

• A third story claims that Lord Lamington’s cook (presumably Gallad) accidentally dropped a block of sponge cake into a dish of chocolate. Later on, it was discovered to be very nice with desiccated coconut sprinkled over the top.

Either way their effort was excellent.

A very proud mum.

 

 

He Googled the recipe somewhere on the net and with his cooking partner and the teacher’s supervision he created these beauties. He brought us a container at home-not the best presentation as they were somewhat squashed in the transport from school to home but they tasted fantastic.