Sunday, February 3, 2008

Jaffa Cakes

Later this afternoon, I'm going to attempt to make a delicious treat called a Jaffa Cake. I love to eat them - they are a spongy cake with a layer of orange marmalade, topped with a thin chocolate coating. They are from England, and I haven't been able to find them here. I've found a decent German substitute at the Commissary, the Bahlsen Messino in Milk Chocolate, but it's not quite the same (Not that it stops me from eating a whole box in a day sometimes!).

I found this recipe after searching around online - and I assume it is from England. I'll need to figure out the volume measurements of the sugar and flour, because they are listed by weight. (I guess I'll need a kitchen scale soon!). Here is the recipe as I found it - (I'll update with the adjustments I'll make later):

Jaffa Cake Recipe
Ingredients:
2 eggs
50 g (2 oz) sugar (or 1/4 cup)
65 g (2 1/2 oz) self raising flour, seived (or 1/2 cup PLUS 1/8 cup)
approx. 60 ml (4 tbsp) marmalade, seived
100g (4 oz) plain chocolate
rind of 1/4 orange, finely grated
10 ml (2 tsp) corn oil
15 ml (1 tbsp) water

Method:
1. Whisk the eggs and sugar until thick and creamy; when the whisk is lifted the mixture leaves a trail.
2. If using a hand whisk put the bowl over a pan of hot water, then fold in flour.
3. Spoon the mixture into 18 will-greased, round bottomed patty tins.
4. Bake for about 10 minutes at 200 deg. C (400 deg. F) Gas 6 until golden brown. Cool on a wire rack.
5. Spread a little marmalade over each cake.
6. Put the chocolate, orange rind, oil, and water into a bowl over a pan of hot water.
7. Stir well until melted. Cool until the chocolate starts to thicken and then spoon over the marmalade. Leave to set.

Serving amount - makes 18

UPDATE :
I found a website that had some conversions for flour
and added the conversions in blue
And here are the results:
I didn't use a double boiler for any steps. I just gently stirred the flour into the sugar and egg mixture. I don't have patty tins (not even sure what they are!!), so I used my muffin pan. I made the first batch too big - I think the thinner the cake the better it will be. I used milk chocolate chips instead of reg. baking chocolate, and I just melted them with the orange rind, oil and water in the microwave in a pyrex bowl. I started it at 30 seconds, then stirred it, and added 10 seconds at time till it was all melted. As you can see from the pictures, I let the chocolate cool too much, so the first few jaffa cakes a little ugly. I reheated the bowl for a 10 more seconds, stirred it well, and did the rest of the cakes.



Pics: The cakes cooling; the difference in height - I think the thinner the better!
Pics: the bowl of melted chocolate; my sous chef spooning the marmalade onto the cakes
Pics: I left a small border around the marmalade; the finished products!
Pic: showing the difference between shiny and pretty chocolate, and gloopy and ugly chocolate. The gloopy choc was not warm enough!

21 comments:

Lili said...

AHHHH! I would pop 10 of those little Jaffas in my mouth if I was there. Love your recipe detail and your sous chef is pretty cute.

Anonymous said...

They look yummy, but a little too much work for me! I need simiple if I want to get them done before my soaps come on... ;)

Anonymous said...

Hi, thank you for mentioning my website in your interesting article, you mentioned it in regards of the flour ingredient converter/calculator.

I hope cooking of the meal goes always well!!

All the best,
Rado
--
PS I am reading some more in your nice blog.

Amanda said...

You can make the Jaffa cakes using mini-muffin pans. I'm thinking of trying this recipe this weekend and seeing how it turns out. Was it cake-like or biscuit-like?

In general I think the Jaffa Cakes are kind of like butter cookies that are still soft and chewy in the middle.

paulawy said...

Konosur - The cakes were definitely more like little sponge cakes - not like biscuits. They got a little less spongy after a few days, but they were never flaky like butter cookies. Good luck with the recipe!

Anonymous said...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaffa_Cakes

Rizz said...

I will definately be trying these!
I'm in Australia.
My boyfriend is from England and loves them.. The best substitute he could find was in a store calld Aldi.. As I was reading this I was eating them!

hmmm... said...

Oh, you saved the day here! It's a little too rainy for the long walk to the import store where I can find the real thing in Kentucky, but I already had a jar of strained marmalade in the refrigerator!

Anonymous said...

You could just make one big Jaffa cake and cut it up, I have just eaten a box of 12 and thought I would find out how to make them myself and found your site!!!! Delicious!!!!

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the recipe. I doubled it and made 24 little ones. Next time I will put less mixture in as they rise quite high. I also just used chocolate melts for the topping. Yummy. I think it would work well with apricot jam as well as that fruit goes well with chocolate.

Anonymous said...

Yogscast!!!!!

Anonymous said...

Yogcast!!!!!!!!!

Jen said...

Thank you so much for posting this! My mom spent the past month in the UK visiting all of our extended family and I had her bring me back a box of jaffa cakes...but I'm certain they won't last long! I can't wait to try this out!

Dave!Yognaught said...

Fantastic! I live in Canada, and the closest I can find to Jaffas is expensive packs of PiM's cakes. I'll definitely be trying this recipe after exams, thanks! :D

Anonymous said...

jaffer cakes plus XEPHOS AND HONEYDEW MAKE!...... NYAN CAT (dwarf styke)

Anonymous said...

I am surprised that Jaffa Cakes are not on any list of "prohibited substances" ! As an expatriot Brit I can confirm that these little biscuits can be particularly addictive. In fact these things are Scotland's secret weapon to disturb the English economy, by extending the English workers' well-known "tea-breaks" to almost an hour by over-consumption of JAFFA CAKES !!!

Johhnie Poison

Alex said...

Thanks for the recipe! I've been vacillating over buying Jaffa cakes for the longest time, but the prices you can get them at in the US are extortionate.

Unfortunately, I hate using my muffin tins. Whenever I do, it's such a hassle to clean them. Do you think it would work to bake the cake batter as cookies, a la Sandra Lee's "cake mix" style of cookies?

Jaffa said...

Try this also :)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/homemadejaffacakes_91480

Ryan said...

Thanks, I was looking at a different site, and all the ingredients were in UK measurements and I couldn't figure them out. Also, YOGSCAST!!!! Go Simon!!!

torchwho1 said...

Brace yourselves, the Yogscast comments are coming...

Anonymous said...

great recipe! I made one big instead of several little, and I used some orange jelly on them instead of marmalade. But it was great!