Jaffa Cakes

It has become a bit of a tradition at work that anyone chairing the monthly team meeting provides treats for everyone who attends. These treats normally take the form of cakes or biscuits so I decided to experiment with making jaffa cakes for my final stint as the chair recently. This also gave me an excuse to use up the packet of vegetarian jelly crystals that had been lurking at the back of my cupboard for a while, making these gelatine free so suitable for veggies.

Ingredients

2 eggs

50g sugar

Zest from 2 oranges

½ teaspoon orange blossom water (can be ommitted if not available)

50g plain flour, sifted

An 85g packet of vegetarian jelly crystals

125ml freshly squeezed orange juice

200g dark chocolate

Set the oven to 180 degC/350 degF

Bring some water to the boil in a saucepan and then reduce the heat to a gentle simmer. Place a heatproof bowl over the water ensuring the bottom of the bowl is not touching the water, then add the eggs, sugar, orange zest and orange blossom water to the bowl and whisk for 4-5 minutes until the mixture is pale and fluffy.

Add the flour to the mixture and beat until well combined, producing a thick smooth batter.

Grease each well in a 12-hole muffin tin with a little butter and then half fill each well with the batter. Put the tin in the oven for 8-10 minutes until the cakes are a light golden brown colour. Then remove from the oven, turn out the cakes onto a wire rack and allow to cool.

Meanwhile heat the orange juice in a small saucepan until it starts to boil. Remove from the heat and add the jelly crystals stirring until dissolved. Then pour the mixture into a shallow sided baking tray  forming a 1cm layer of jelly. Set aside until cooled and then place in the fridge to set. (If you can’t get hold of jelly crystals you can replace the crystals with 1 normal 135g packet or orange jelly, chopping it into small pieces before added to the hot orange juice).

Once the jelly has set use a biscuit cutter to cut out discs of jelly the same diameter as the cakes. Sit a jelly disc on top of each cake.

Again bring some water to the boil in a saucepan and then reduce the heat to a gentle simmer. Suspend a heat proof bowl over the water (again ensuring the bowl doesn’t touch the water). Break the chocolate into pieces and add to the bowl, stirring occassionally until melted. Pour the chocolate over the cakes (I find it best to put the cakes on a wire cooling rack with a baking tray placed underneath to catch any extra chocolate that pours off the cakes)and set aside until the chocolate has cooled and set.

Adapted from homemade jaffa cakes