Re-Inventing the Lamington Day Ten: Banana Honey Cream Lamingtons

(In which Mr. P dreams a dream of times gone by.)

When all of this lamington business started, I was thinking about little cubes of chocolate covered cake way more than is really healthy. I even started dreaming about them.

A more subdued backdrop. Personally, I miss the owls.

This is not in itself an odd occurrence - I usually have food dreams when I go to bed hungry, and also often dream about running my own bakery, and living above (I have the name and everything all planned, I just need someone from the bank to come and loan me the money!). But in this one dream I had, I was still working in the high school I taught at in Japan after I graduated.

God, I really do love cake. You know that this is going to taste fantastic.

It was the school festival, which during my year there was a grand occasion (school anniversary!), and instead of manning the English Studies Society (over which I presided eminently) stall, I was running a lamington stand.

Lamingtons are on my brain!

I do remember though, that at the school festival, a couple of the third years were in charge of a stall that was selling chocolate coated bananas which were dee-licious. They had even painted different cartoon characters' faces on them in coloured chocolate, which I thought was just fantastic.

My thinking was that the dream was a sign, and I set about making a similar confection last week, before I went to work. They were going to be called 'Lamington-ed Bananas', and were basically bananas covered in rich chocolate ganache and sprinkled with dessicated coconut, flaked coconut, and hundreds and thousands. And they were wonderful, in flavour, but lacked a lot in form, to put it kindly.

Reader: they were what I can only dub 'Closed Casket Lamingtons', and I am too embarrassed to even show you the photographs (without being bribed!).

An 'Open-Casket Lamington'.

So, despite having the cold from hell, and jet-lag to boot, I got up this morning and baked some new ones. Call me crazy. I don't care. I just wanted the challenge to go out with a bang.

I kept the banana idea, but added some honey too; it gives the glaze a nice sort of Toblerone taste. And having been disappointed with my over-whipped cream before, I have rectified the situation here. Vigilance is required though. Cream goes firm and icky in the blink of an eye.

So this is it. The end of the challenge! It's been great fun, I must say, and thanks to all of you for following me along the way. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. Be sure to come back tomorrow for a real Australia Day celebration - a round up of all the entries to my Re-Inventing the Lamington Competition.

And to Clare, who has just texted me to find out why the tenth lamington is late being posted - here you go!

Just to prove that we do eat all of these.
Well, aren't you supposed to eat a lot when you get a cold?

Banana Honey Cream Lamingtons

You will need:

1/2 quantity Mr P's Lamington Base
300g milk chocolate (I didn't have any plain)
2 tbsp runny honey
300ml double cream
200g dessicated coconut
2 ripe bananas, sliced

1. Cut the cake into cubes, or whatever shapes you desire. You know I'm permissive.
2. Melt the chocolate, honey and 100ml cream together in a heatproof bowl over a pan of simmering water. Set aside to cool. You should have a thickish 'ganache', which will be the glaze.
3. Pour the coconut into a flat dish. Dip the cake cubes into the chocolate, and then immediately into the coconut. Roll and cover with coconut. Dry on a cooling rack.
4. Whip the cream until soft peaks form. Do not over-whip. Or else!
5. Slice the banana.
6. Slice the lamingtons, and assemble. It goes like this: cake, cream, banana, cake, cream.
7. Eat.