Jaffa Cakes

Funny story to go with these Jaffa cakes. I took them to my friend’s house when she was holding a get together of all our friends at the end of Easter break. I always forget to bring in the stuff I make for my friends and I knew that my family of 3 didn’t really need 18 of these lying around! One of my friends brought their cousin with them, who had never met any of us before. He didn’t realise that it was me who had made the Jaffa cakes, and therefore remarked when the tin was passed round ‘Who on earth has time to make Jaffa cakes? Don’t they know you can buy them?’ Cue much, much embarrassment! Luckily he was very sweet and spent the rest of the evening trying to recover from the gaffe. I’d also like to point out that he ate 4!It did make me think though about the funny things having a food blog can make you bake. Some people were similarly bemused when my friend Emily and I made marshmallows, considering you can buy a big bag for 90p! However as you know I really enjoy making homemade versions of shop-bought favourites – you can see my previous challenges here. I’m not sure how well known Jaffa Cakes are out of the UK, but basically they are little flat cakes with a disc of orange jelly on top, covered in dark chocolate. I was inspired to make these after seeing the recipe here by the guys at Sorted Food –my new favourite way to procrastinate is exploring their site!These were really satisfying and fun to make and I was so pleased when they worked perfectly and looked like the original! After a few baking fails I love it when a plan comes together. I followed the recipe to a T and my only comments would be that I think the amounts for the jelly and chocolate were too generous – 200g of each is stated in the recipe and I only used 100g of jelly and 120g of chocolate. I didn’t really mind about the excess jelly as it comes in packets of 200g so you can see why the recipe just says to make all of it (and it was very soothing when I came down with a really sore throat!) but I think it is good to have a heads up. Happily, I also got 18 instead of 12 final cakes and mine were a decent size! The ratios of the layers in the final jaffa were perfect – the classic thin Jaffa cake layers all combining perfectly. I also really liked the method of using a packet of orange jelly cubes (the finished cakes are still a lot more homemade than normal!) and jazzing up the flavour with the juice of an extra orange, which made it really strong and stand up to the chocolate. Enjoy! :)