I've been missing Australia a lot lately so it was nice to spend Australia Day with a bunch of other Aussies even if we were thousands of miles away in Seattle. We enjoyed Aussie favorites including sausage rolls, pavlova, a sausage sizzle and of course, Lamingtons. Most people outside of Australia and New Zealand aren't familiar with these delicious treats. They are cubes of cake, covered in chocolate icing and rolled in dessicated coconut. I used a recipe from Joy of Baking which turned out a lovely result that took me back to my childhood.
Dessicated coconut is just unsweetened shredded coconut that is easily available in most grocery stores in Australia but in Seattle it's a bit harder to find (most of the coconut is sweetened). Normal people would get it from a Whole Foods or Natural Market but after a very busy week I thought I would relax with a bit of kitchen DIY: Home made dessicated coconut! Essentially it involved cracking a coconut, getting out all the meat, peeling the thin brown peel away and shredding the meat in a food processor. The shredded coconut is dessicated in a 250F oven for about 30 minutes.
