Jaffa Cakes

What do you do when you have a day off? I had one off recently and was feeling a bit miserable so I decided to cheer myself up by making some homemade jaffa cakes. I grew up eating a lot of these, living in the Middle East surrounded by a lot of British expat kids. There was always the inevitable debate about whether they were cakes or biscuits. Tomred has since explained to me that the definitive indicator is that a cake will go hard when stale whereas a biscuit will go soft when it gets stale.

There's a really great balance to a jaffa cake. The super thin, soft and airy sponge covered with an orange jelly layer and a crunchy thin top of dark chocolate. Once I realised I could get them at Aldi, I introduced them to my brother, who has become obsessed with them and eats them by the boxful. (I don't know how he does it, I feel ill after too many) So since I was spending the day at his house I thought I'd be a nice sister and attempt to make some for him. Because I still firmly believe fresh baked goods made from scratch are always better!

These turned out pretty good. I would have liked a slightly moister sponge, and a thinner layer of chocolate, but after putting them in the fridge overnight the sponge moistened because of the marmalade and the chocolate hardened nicely. They were lovely with a cup of tea!

Happy Jaffa Man!

Jaffa Cakes
(adapted from this recipe by Uncle Phaedrus)
2 eggs
50 g sugar
65 g self-raising flour, sieved
approx 4 tbsp marmalade, sieved (I forgot to sieve it but it didn't really matter)
100 g bittersweet chocolate
rind of 1/2 orange, finely grated
2 tsp vegetable oil
1 tbsp water

Whisk the eggs and sugar until thick and creamy; when the whisk is lifted the mixture leaves a trail. (I just used an electric beater for about 3 minutes) If using a hand whisk put the bowl over a pan of hot water, then fold in the flour. (I didn't bother with this)

Spoon the mixture into 18 well-greased, round-bottomed patty tins. Bake for about 10 minutes at 200°C until golden brown.

Cool on a wire rack. At this point I decided to slice my cakes in half, to make them look closer to the thin cakes that you buy in the supermarket. However, feel free to leave them uncut to have a higher sponge to chocolate ratio.

Spread a dollop of marmalade over each cake.

Put the chocolate, orange rind, oil and water into a bowl over a pan of hot water. Stir well until melted. Cool until the chocolate starts to thicken and then spoon over the marmalade. Leave to set.

The nice thing about these little babies is they are small but satisfying, so you can stop at just one and be happy. But I may have had several in a row anyway ;)