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Dinky-di delights

Jane Holroyd

Dan Lepard's double-chocolate lamingtons include a 'sacreligious' addition of cocoa to the cake.
Dan Lepard's double-chocolate lamingtons include a 'sacreligious' addition of cocoa to the cake.Colin Campbell/Guardian

Individual pavlovas with passionfruit by Stephanie Alexander

Her hefty Cook's Companion can be found in more than 500,000 Australian kitchens. But when Stephanie Alexander is asked to define Australian food, she still can't pin it down. ''In today's day and age it is almost a nonsense to imply there's one thing that can be called an Australian dish,'' she says. 'The more I talk about [the concept of an Australian national cuisine], the less sense it makes … I have never found a better answer than that - in Australia it's our diversity that makes us special. Our climate means we can grow nearly everything and we have such a diverse population that there's always someone willing to show you how to cook something properly.'' Alexander, with the equally indomitable Maggie Beer, has devised an Australiana menu for the World's Longest Lunch in the Fitzroy Gardens, which kicks off the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival on March 1. The 1200 guests won't be sitting down to pavlova, but Alexander nevertheless nominates it as one of her favourite Australian dishes. ''It seems to be universally popular. I love it with passionfruit on top, never kiwifruit. I can accept strawberries! It says 'Australian summer' to me. To achieve the right combination of crisp outer shell and soft marshmallow inside is trickier with small pavlovas than one large one. The temperatures and times given are correct for my oven. The outer shell should colour only very little and will feel delicately crisp when lightly tapped with a fingernail.''

1 tsp cornflour

Pavlova, especially when topped with passionfruit, says 'Australian summer' to Stephanie Alexander.
Pavlova, especially when topped with passionfruit, says 'Australian summer' to Stephanie Alexander.Mark Chew
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½⁄ tsp white wine vinegar

2 free-range egg whites, at room temperature

½⁄ cup (110g) castor sugar

Diana Lampe's Afghan biscuits.
Diana Lampe's Afghan biscuits.Supplied

½⁄ cup (125ml) pouring cream

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4-6 ripe passionfruit, halved

1. Preheat oven to 150C.

2. Sift cornflour into a small bowl. Put vinegar into a small container. Whisk egg whites with an electric mixer to form satiny peaks. Dribble in vinegar. With motor running, add one-third of the sugar at a time. Add cornflour and beat once more to combine.

3. Using a large metal spoon, scoop

four egg-size portions of the meringue on to a baking-paper-lined tray. Bake for 15 minutes, then reduce oven temperature to 120C and bake for a further 15 minutes. Turn oven off, then hold door ajar with a wooden spoon and leave for 30 minutes. Transfer meringues to an airtight container.

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4. Whip cream to stiff peaks. Put a meringue on to each serving plate, then spoon on whipped cream. Leave for at least 30 minutes for cream to soften meringue. Spoon on passionfruit pulp.

Serves 4

From Lantern Cookery Classics: Stephanie Alexander by Stephanie Alexander. Photography by Mark Chew (Lantern, $19.99).

Double-chocolate lamingtons by Dan Lepard

Dan Lepard's double-chocolate lamingtons caused a minor contretemps when the recipe was published in The Guardian in April 2012. One indignant reader went so far as to call the inclusion of cocoa in the cake ''sacrilege''. The London-based baker loves a lamington. His cookbook Short & Sweet: The Best of Home Baking includes a recipe for the more-traditional jammy variety, but these have a subtle rich-chocolate flavour and feather-light texture that make them equally good. Lepard advises putting foil over the cake because it helps the cake rise more evenly. You'll have about 250 millilitres of coating left over - just the stuff, he says, for lamington milkshakes with ice-cream and coconut.

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300g castor sugar

50g cocoa

75ml milk

50g unsalted butter

50g dark chocolate

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50ml sunflower oil

4 medium eggs

100ml low-fat natural yoghurt

3 tsp vanilla extract

175g plain flour

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3 tsp baking powder

For the coating (makes 750ml)

15g cocoa

50ml cold milk

175ml boiling water

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200g dark chocolate, finely chopped

450g icing sugar

1-2 250g bags coconut (that is, much more than you would think)

1. Line the base of a deep, 20cm square cake tin with non-stick paper and heat the oven to 170C (150C fan-forced). Put the sugar and cocoa in a bowl and beat in the milk. Melt the butter and chocolate in a saucepan, and add to the sugar mix along with the oil. Beat in the eggs until smooth, stir in the yoghurt and vanilla, and mix in the flour and baking powder. Pour into the tin, cover with a slightly domed sheet of foil and bake for an hour. Lift off the foil for the last 15 minutes. Remove, cool in the tin and, while warm, cover with cling film.

2. For the coating, mix the cocoa and milk until smooth, whisk in the boiling water, then stir in the chocolate until melted. Whisk in the icing sugar until dissolved and pour into a deep, wide jug. Cut the cake into nine, dunk each piece in the coating and fish out with two forks. Roll in coconut and leave to set.

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Makes 9

Diana Lampe's Afghan biscuits

Afghans are little chocolate biscuits topped with chocolate icing and walnuts. They contain cornflakes which make them a bit crunchy. It is likely they were named after the Afghan cameleers and camel trains that were so important in developing the Australian outback from the mid-1800s to the early 1900s.

I think the small mounds of biscuit with icing and walnuts on top resemble a camel's hump with saddle and luggage; anyway it is a good story. The earliest recipe I can find for the Afghan biscuits is in the Country Women's Association's Coronation Cookery Book, first published in 1937.

Makes 36 small biscuits

200g butter at room temperature
1/2 cup (110g) caster sugar
225g (11/2 cups) plain flour, sifted
pinch of salt
2 tbsp Dutch cocoa, sifted
2 cups (55g) cornflakes

Icing
1 tbsp butter at room temperature
1 1/4 cups icing sugar
1 tbsp Dutch cocoa, sifted
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
Hot water as needed
2 handfuls of walnut halves or quarters

Toast the walnuts on a tray in an 180C oven for five minutes.

Cream the butter and sugar in a food processor, mixer or by hand. Then work in the sifted flour, salt and cocoa. Lightly crush the cornflakes in your hands and mix into the mixture.

Line a large tray with baking paper. Preheat the oven to 180C.

Drop the mixture by the teaspoonful on to the tray and press into mounds with your fingers. An easier method is to use a mini ice-cream scoop if you have one. Of course you can make them bigger if you like. Place the biscuits about 2cm apart as they do not spread during baking.

Bake for 15 or 20 minutes depending on size. Turn the oven tray around after 10 minutes so they cook evenly. Allow them to rest on the tray for five minutes and then transfer to a rack to cool.

To make the icing, beat the ingredients by hand and add as much hot water as is needed to bring it to spreading consistency. Use a spatula to spread a little icing on the top of each biscuit and then place a piece of walnut on top. I like to use half a walnut, but quarters are fine too. It is easy to make a bit more icing if you run short. Leave the biscuits on the rack for the icing to set. Store the Afghans in an airtight container; they will keep for about a week. I think they are actually better after a day or two.

Note: For the variation with coconut add a tablespoon of coconut to the biscuit mixture.

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