I had intended on following Bill Granger’s recipe for Lamingtons themselves but the sponge mix didn’t set and with 6 eggs in it I wasn’t overly surprised. So after a quick re-think I whizzed up a batch of Nigella’s trusty cupcakes and then topped each with lamington icing.

I wont bore you with the cupcake recipe now I’ll just tell you about the chocolatey topping…

Ingredients (to top 12 cupcakes)

• 50g dark chocolate
• 125g icing sugar
• 5g butter
• 30ml milk
• 60g desiccated coconut

Method

1. Put icing sugar, chocolate, milk and butter in a heatproof bowl & melt over a simmering pan of water
2. Put the coconut on a plate
3. Dip each cupcake into the melted icing mix, ensure each cake has a generous coating
4. Dip into the coconut
5. Leave to dry

After the buns were cooked I started on preparing a three course dinner as we had invited my parents around. Inspiration for the dinner came courtesy of Delicious Magazine.

For starters we had roasted parsnip and parmesan soup:

Followed by pancetta-wrapped salmon with saffron and herb rice, served with crushed new potatoes and purple sprouting broccoli:

The salmon was surprisingly easy to make despite having to skin the whole side of a fish! & it looked rather impressive before and after cooking:

Those sticking to Good Friday traditions didn’t eat the pancetta & I substituted all chicken stocks for vegetable stock.

And we finished with Nigella’s molten chocolate baby cakes:

I first made this a few weeks back but I didn’t blog about it after taking the photos. Tonight I’ve made another loaf so here is the recipe but as my loaf is in the oven the pictures are from last time.

Chilli Loaf

• 375g wholemeal strong flour
• 375g white strong flour
• 3 teaspoons salt
• 2-3 teaspoons chilli flakes (I used 2 & that provided a good heat without going OTT)
• 7g sachet of dry yeast

How To Do It

1. Mix all dry ingredients in a bowl
2. Add 450ml water (at room temperature)
3. Combine into dough & knead until elastic – around 5/10 minutes
4. Leave to rise in bowl (cover with damp cloth) for 2 hours
5. Knock back & shape into ‘tin’ shaped & pop in a floured tin
6. Leave to rise again for 45 minutes
7. Cook for 15 minutes at 230 ° c then for 20/25 minutes at 200 ° c until cooked
8. Leave to cool on rack

Decorating officially started yesterday when I marzipaned it:
And today I iced and decorated. I stupidly started before having any dinner as I under-estimated how long it would take.

I am quite proud of my first Christmas cake & my first ever iced cake with proper icing decorations but please do let me know what you think!!

I am just keeping my fingers crossed that it survives until Christmas day in the same condition and that it tastes ok! I’ll report back next week!

But I’m sure that there is a better frosting out there somewhere… please let me know if you have any icing suggestions to help me out here!