Ingredients

• 12 oz salted butter (preferably left at room temperature overnight / few hours)
• 12 oz sugar (preferably caster sugar)
• 6 eggs (preferably left at room temperature overnight / few hours)
• 12 oz self raising flour
• 1 tsp vanilla essence
• 1/2 cup water
• 1 tsp baking powder

sauce:

• 3 heaped tbsp salted butter
• 3 cups icing sugar
• 2 mugs of water
• 3 heaped Tbsps cocoa
• dessicated coconut
• Nutella (melted) (optional)
• Hazelnuts (optional)

Method:

1. Recite Bismillah.
2. Preheat oven to 170c.
3. Beat sugar & butter till light & creamy. This will take a while & is the key to a fluffy & airy cake. (We recommend taking out the stand mixer for this)
4. Meanwhile sift the self raising flour in a bowl & set aside.
5. Grease a 10″ square baking tin with a generous amount of butter, including the sides. Then sprinkle some self raising flour & shake & tilt the tin around so it is thinly coated with flour. Shake off any excess flour. Set aside.
6. Add one egg at a time to the butter & cream mixture with a tbsp of flour each time & mix.
7. Add remaining flour, water & vanilla. Mix well but do not over beat!
8. Fold in baking powder. Do not beat on a high speed at this stage! You don’t want to over beat it.
9. Pour into 10″ square tin.
10. Bake at 170c for 30 mins.
11. Then without removing the cake from the oven cover it with foil. Do this as quickly as possible. This will prevent the top of the cake from burning.
12. Bake for a further 15 mins. You will know the cake is cooked when the sides have started to release from the pan & the middle is springy to touch. Do not rely a clean toothpick!
13. Run a knife all around the sides of the pan, this will help release the cake from the pan.
14. Remove the cake from pan by placing a tray on top of the cake. Flip the tin over so that the top of the cake with the tray is now facing down. Pat the back of the tin all around. The cake should release from the bottom. Lift the tin gently.
15. Allow to cool, preferably on a cooling rack .
16. Cut into square pieces.

Sauce:

1. Melt butter in a pot.
2. Add water & stir.
3. Add icing sugar & cocoa & boil once. Simmer for a min. Turn off heat.
4. If you are a Nutella lover you may want to fill your lamingtons with Nutella before making the Syrup. This is totally optional. For this you can use a very thin long nozzle in a piping bag, filled with melted Nutella. Gently push it half way in to the cake pieces & squeeze in the Nutella. Another way to do this is by using a small round nozzle, cut out a circle from the cake. Be careful not to cut all the way down to the bottom. Using a piping bag fill the hole with Nutella & then stick the removed piece of cake back on.
5. Dip cake slices in sauce & roll in coconut.
6. Drizzle with Nutella & sprinkle with hazelnuts- again optional!
7. Enjoy!

Tips:

• If you do not have a stand mixer, have all the ingredients weighed out & ready so all you are focusing on is the making the cake batter!
• If you do not have caster sugar, you can make some at home yourself! Simply blitz granulated sugar in a food processor / chopper, till the grains look like caster sugar, be careful not to blitz it too much & turn it into icing sugar!