This Indulgent gluten free Lamington log cake means business. You could serve this as a dinner party dessert, yes it’s true! I remember making lamingtons with a girlfriend years ago. A supermarket sponge, nestlé cocoa powder, white sugar… we’ve all got a past, don’t you worry! This will more than make up for it, no matter how ugly things were.
When embarking upon this recipe originally, I put it out to the community what everyone’s intolerances / allergies and preferences were to avoid, and I was going to try and produce one recipe that everyone could cook and enjoy together. Well, it was a miserable failure. I used stevia glycerite and erythritol for the people who’d requested and I have to say, maybe it’s because there was no butter, no eggs in the mix to create richness, but all I could taste was chemicals. It was horrible. Best for people you can’t have any glucose NOR fructose to enjoy cakes with other big flavours like chocolate or lemon, as a plain sponge is too much of a window into its ingredients. The chia egg replacer worked really quite well, but the egg replacer without the butter, and with macadamia oil instead, meant the ‘dirt’ flavour of the chia bran really came through and made the whole cake honestly taste like chemical dirt. I’ve never in all my life thrown out 2 home baked cakes, but today, it happened.
I totally felt like I’d failed all the people who believed it was possible and then I got a grip and grew a brain: Make a great recipe and list individual allergy / intolerance tweaks as I usually do, so that people could make it however they fancied. I ditched the idea of little squares and went with one big giant log of indulgence. Time for a shake up, don’t you think?
Now, if you’re already fan of my choose your own adventure cake or coconut cupcakes, you could use those instead of this cake recipe and then follow the ganache and jam components here… up to you!
Now, lastly, all the people’s concerns with your allergies / intolerances. Please note if you have to sub more than one thing, given such small amount of ingredients as it is, I prefer to honestly tell you that it’s best to make a different treat altogether. Or, if you have a cake you enjoy within your food needs, use that and then follow the jam and ganache topping to tie it into theme.
Coconut free – make the ganache with regular whole cream and instead of 1/2 cup coconut flour, do 1 cup almond meal and tapioca stays as is. Then for the ‘desiccated coconut dusting, why not dust some crushed nuts or even just garnish with raspberries.
Dairy free / Casein – use coconut oil or macadamia oil for the cake and ensure your chocolate is dairy free for making the ganache or of course make the raw chocolate / carob spread
BOTH dairy and coconut free – make the raw chocolate topping and sub butter for macadamia oil in the cake
Egg free – I truly didn’t love the sponge with chia egg replacer (3 tablespoons ground to a meal in food processor / thermomix with 1/2 cup water, let sit 4 minutes and then mixed into cake batter) BUT if you’re determined to try it, go for it. I have to say I’d also done coconut oil AND erythritol / stevia glycerite for someone asking for that, so it was perhaps the combination of the 3 sacrifices that made it particularly icky)
Nut free – it IS nut free 🙂
Fructose free – the jam is very very low fructose being berries, but if cannot tolerate at all, why not do a raw chocolate middle layer too – go on then!
Glucose / Maltose free / Diabetic – swap the rice malt syrup for Natvia / Swerve (stevia / erythritol) As I said, my trial came out very chemically tasting with those, but could have been because also replacing butter AND eggs in the trial and therefore taste was more prominant with plainer other ingredients. Please do let me know if you try and enjoy it 🙂
Real Food. Happy Bodies
Indulgent Gluten Free Lamington Log Recipe
Ingredients
- 110 g softened butter
- 1/2 cup (10 ounces) rice malt syrup
- 3 eggs
- 1/2 cup coconut flour
- 2/3 cup tapioca flour
- 1 tsp vanilla bean powder or 2 tsp extract
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 3 tbsp coconut cream
- 1 cup desiccated coconut or shredded coconut, lightly toasted in pan and cooled
FIRST CHOICE FOR ICING - COCONUT GANACHE
- 170 g dark additive free chocolate I use Cocolo for cooking as it’s super creamy and dairy free, for my son’s intolerance. Whichever your favourite is however is fine.
- 60 ml coconut cream / 60 ml coconut water (you could just do 120ml coconut milk but this is what I had in the cupboard) – or regular cream if you can’t do coconut products.
SECOND CHOICE FOR ICING - COCOA OR CAROB
- 150 ml coconut oil
- 1/2 cup cocoa or carob powder
- 40 ml milk of choice (coconut is my first preference here followed by whole milk.)
- 40 ml rice malt syrup
My SIMPLE RAW CHOCOLATE ICING- a luscious and easy raw alternative
- 150 g avocado
- 120 g coconut cream "top" (meaning, refrigerated coconut cream that you open the can of and just use the top, really solid bit. Use the rest for smoothies, porridge or hot chocolate)
- 150 g coconut sugar (for a fructose free version you can also use 60g rice syrup but it won’t set quite as well)
- 100 g raw cacao powder, dutch processed powder or carob powder
Optional extra – but it really makes it – BERRY JAM FILLING
- 1 cup frozen berries of your choice (red works best such as raspberry or strawberry)
- 1 tsp vanilla bean extract or powder
- 2 tbsp rice malt, honey or maple syrup, or 3 pinches green stevia powder
Instructions
CAKEY BIT
- Beat the eggs and rice malt syrup until light in colour and then beat further with the softened butter (if using hand held beaters of patissiere machine, all up about 2 minutes)
- Then, pop in the vanilla, flours, baking powder and coconut cream. Beat a further 20 seconds or until just combined, as coconut flour continues to soak up liquid over time and we don’t want it too thick.
- Then, lay out on a wide tray (mine was 26cm x 22cm) so you get a nice, large and thin sponge.
- Bake in oven for 20 minutes, or until skewer is clean and it shows a little bounce to the gentle press of a finger. Fan forced it might be a little under 20, or without fan force it might be a few minutes over 20. Keep an eye.
- Take out. Once cool, trim the sides and cut in half long ways so you have 2 nice long rectangles to make your ‘log’.
FOR THE SIMPLE RAW CHOCOLATE ICING
- Blend all until thick and creamy, adding a little extra coconut cream if too thick.
FOR THE JAM
- Simply pop your berries, vanilla and syrup into a sauce pan on low and cook out until the liquid nearly evaporates. Allow to cool and thicken while the cake is in the oven and then cooling down.
FOR THE GANACHE/FILLING
- Once cake is done and nearly room temperature, get started on the ganache icing, raw chocolate icing or liquid set icing, which ever you fancy using.
ASSEMBLY
- Now that you have a cool cake and jam and your ganache is made, time to make the lamington log.
- Ganache or raw chocolate / raw carbo mix note – pop in the fridge for a bit (literally just 5-10 minutes) to make it easier / thicker to work with.
- Spoon your jam over one of the long, cut rectangles of cake.
- Set the other piece of cake (get it?) on top. Puntastic!
- Now, spoon about half the ganache / liquid chocolate mix over the top of the log, and start working it very gently over the top of the log until evenly covered and smooth, and starting to drip down the sides a little.
- Now do the sides. The trick is to hold the spatula against the side of the cake with one side of the paddle touching the bottom of the log and the other side angled away from the cake. Spoon ganache onto spatula and then bring top of spatula up to the top of the log. I will try to pop the video I did in here, to save me (or you!) from going mental trying to explain / understand this step.
- Pop in the fridge for 10 minutes once you’ve done this and take out a couple of times and coerce the ganache that may have gathered to the bottom, back up the side of the log with a similar motion.
- Now, cover your log with cool toasted coconut. Let it set 30 minutes in the fridge or pop in overnight for impending festivities the next day or night.
TO SERVE
- Garnish with fresh berries however elaborately you fancy, or just rinsed and straight out of the punnet. I decided to go the whole hog so to speak!
- Cut slices of the log, loaf style, and serve with whipped coconut cream, regular cream, custard, coconut ice cream, creme fraiche or vanilla bean ice cream.
- A decadent take on a lamington this Australia day: France meets Australia meets alternative diets. Here she is!
Comments 4
Thank goodness I found this. Reading possum magic last night and my nearly 3 year old literally fell asleep crying, “I want a lamington, mummy!” She’s never even had one! Needless to say I promised her I would make her one in the morning. Aaaaaaand in the morning she remembered…… Here’s hoping I can pull it off!
Author
oh yay Natalia – So glad you guys are making it – I think you’re the one who shared it on FB so looks like you can indeed pull it off! Enjoy x
i love this recipe and have made it for 2 years now. wondering if you could freeze it ok?
Author
I dare say it would freeze fine x