Lamingtons and sponge making

I am a lover of books. Any sort of book. I can be quiet as a mouse flicking through most sorts of books but especially recipe books, ooohing and aaahing and drooling over the ingredients and photos, while always on the lookout, of course, for new ideas.
While visiting Elaine I was handed a copy of  the book 'The Mackenzie Muster - A Century of Favourites" published in 1989 and reprinted many, many times. It is a real beauty, clearly a classic that has stood the the test of time. Full of interesting farming recipes, tips for cooking for big, hungry country folk and catering for crowds. It kept me enthralled for ages. Some of the recipes were pretty 'out there', for example - lamb on a rope! ( If you have a yearning to cook this dish let me know and I will send you the recipe).
So I found myself searching in the book for a good sponge recipe as I had offered to make a few dozen of the classic Kiwi Lamingtons for a local fund raising event. I don't recall having ever made Lamingtons before. But I thought it might be a good idea to make chocolate and strawberry Lamingtons from scratch.... "no store bought sponge for our customers", says I.
I found an easy recipe in the previously mentioned book - 'a big sponge for shearers'! My thinking was, it had to be the 'perfect never fail' sponge, something that has been alluding me for sometime now.
I adore the countryside and love the smell of fresh farming air etc but I can honestly say I have never had to cook for shearers or any farming folk for that matter. In fact you couldn't get a woman more 'city like' than me. But I imagined hungry shearers were pretty hard to please so decided to give the recipe a try.
I am sorry to say I still haven't perfected sponge making and my attempt at baking the 'big shearers sponge' was an utter failure. Not to waste anything, said 'cake like' sponge was dispatched to the freezer for later use in a large trifle.
Six eggs down and back to the drawing board. I turned to Donna Hay's Chocolate recipe book and managed to produce one smallish sponge that I considered almost acceptable but not perfect. But unfortunately it was clearly not big enough to make dozens of Lamingtons.

My attempt at a sponge

By this stage in the morning I was completely 'sponged out' so resorted to asking dear hubby to pop down to the supermarket and buy one large unfilled sponge.

My conclusion through all of this is experience -  making Lamingtons from scratch was a real test of sponge making skills. It was also very time consuming, requiring a lot of patience and a lot of careful dipping and rolling in coconut. (I found the chocolate coating originally too thick and caused the sponge 'cube' to actually fall apart - not helpful.)
I used a Taste recipe for the strawberry Lamingtons and a good old reliable Edmond's recipe (slightly watered down) for the chocolate ones.
Once all the 'issues' were sorted out I considered all the effort absolutely worth it.

Result: They were really nice after all the drama! I was on the morning shift at the stall and my Lamingtons were (thankfully) slowly disappearing to happy customers for $2 each.
My mother always made wonderful sponges, I really wish I had noted down her secret to the perfect sponge. I will just have to keep on trying......