Jaffa Cakes

Jaffa cakes are a bit of a weird dessert, in my opinion. Rather, they SOUND weird from description. Thin layer of genoise sponge, a layer of orange jelly - thick jello jelly - and then a layer of chocolate. 

I like orange and chocolate together - seriously, who doesn't love a chocolate orange at Christmas - but orange jello on a sponge cake base with a chocolate coating just...does NOT sound appetizing. 

Fortunately, this particular combination tasted much better than I thought it would based on description alone. 

Fun jaffa cake fact #1: Jaffa cakes actually caused a large debate in UK tax law! In the early 90s a legal question arose as to whether jaffas should be taxed like a cake or a biscuit (cookie). Chocolate covered biscuits have a VAT, but chocolate covered cakes do not. Pre-packaged jaffa cakes are very thin and biscuit like - hence the tax case. During the case, the corporation that sells jaffa cakes baked a giant jaffa cake to prove that it wasn't a biscuit!

Fun jaffa cake fact #2: Jaffa cakes are actually named after a type of orange. ​Since the standard flavor base is orange flavored jelly, this probably isn't too surprising, but the more you know!

Jaffa cakes featured on series 7 (Netflix collection 4), episode 1: Cake Week! They were the technical challenge for the week. 

I used Mary Berry's Jaffa Cake recipe with some uh...slight changes. 

INGREDIENTS
For the jelly:

• 135g packet orange jelly
  • So I grabbed a couple of boxes of orange jello and some packets of unflavored gelatin. If you're unfamiliar, this is the trick to making jello jigglers. Extra gelatin makes the jello firmer - just like in the advertisements!
  • I grabbed a box of orange jello and a box of strawberry jello and doubled the recipe - because I love chocolate and orange but I also love chocolate and strawberry. 
• finely grated zest of 1 small orange
  • I legit just omitted this. 
• 150ml boiling water
  • Or as much water as you need for the jello jigglers, basically. 

For the sponge:

• unsalted butter, for greasing
  • Or Baker's Joy or equivalent. I really hate greasing tins with butter, so I am almost always going to use Baker's Joy or the Pam Baking Spray. 
• 2 large eggs
• 50g caster sugar
• 50g self-raising flour, sifted

For the topping:

• 180g plain chocolate, 46% cocoa solids

EQUIPMENT

• 5cm round biscuit cutter
  • or just do what I do and use a close-ish sized cup
• 30cm x 20cm baking tray
• 12-hole shallow bun tin
  • I used one of my older muffin tins that is very shallow by comparison to my newer one. 

METHOD
1) For the jelly, break the jelly into pieces and place in a small bowl. Pour over the boiling water and stir until the jelly is completely dissolved. Add the orange zest, then pour into a shallow 30cm x 20cm tray. Chill in the fridge for 1 hour until set.

• Since I used jello + extra gelatin...literally just follow the jello instructions and add a satchet of gelatin to it. Make sure to pour it into a shallow dish so that it spreads out into a fairly thin layer. 

2) Meanwhile, pre-heat the oven to 180°C/350°F (355 if you want to be really on the money) and grease a 12-hole, shallow bun tin with butter. Whisk the eggs and sugar together for 4–5 minutes until pale and fluffy, then gently fold in the flour.

​3) Fill each well in the bun tin three quarters full with the cake batter. Bake for 7–9 minutes, until well risen and the tops of the sponges spring back when lightly pressed with a finger. Remove from the oven and leave to cool in the tray for a few minutes, then finish cooling on a wire rack.

4) To assemble, break the chocolate into pieces then melt in a bowl set over a pan of gently simmering water. Remove the bowl from the heat and leave to cool and thicken slightly.

• I'm not going to lie...I've really become a fan of melting chocolate in the microwave. It doesn't heat up the house and I feel like I get much more consistent temper results doing it that way! Knowing how to temper chocolate with a double boiler is a good skill - but let's be honest, if you're doing this at home you're probably looking for quick and convenient rather than heating water to the point you're sweating when you already have the oven on. 

5) Turn the jelly out onto a sheet of non-stick baking parchment. Cut 12 discs from the orange jelly using a 5cm round cutter. Sit one jelly disc on top of each sponge.

• This is why you want to make sure your jelly is in a fairly thin layer. If the discs of jello are too thick, it's going to cause some issues when spreading your chocolate over it. 

6) Spoon the melted chocolate over the jelly discs and leave to set slightly. Using a fork, create a criss-cross pattern on top of the chocolate, then leave to set completely.

Final Thoughts
So overall, jaffa cakes were really quite an easy bake. Genoise sponge can be a little bit of a pain in the ass, but honestly I think any light, airy cake would work just as well for these. I'd recommend it be not too sweet and make sure you do a very small cake. 

A few things I would definitely do differently when making these in the future: thinner layers of jello. Mine weren't very thick, but they were still a bit too thick for these jaffa cakes - especially the strawberry. Part of the reason some of the jello layers look so messy is because I needed to go back and try and slice them into thinner layers. It went about as well as you can imagine with jello jigglers trying to make their escape off the countertop. 

I didn't do the cross-hatch decoration on top of the chocolate because I am lazy, and because I frankly thought they looked fine as is. 

Make sure that your chocolate has cooled a bit. It should still be spoonable/spreadable but not hot enough to start melting the jello. I bring this up because I had four ugly jaffa cakes. The chocolate was too hot. The jello started to liquidize. The chocolate would not stay on the jaffa cake.

As you can imagine, they were a delicious taste test sacrifice. ;) 

I do recommend giving these homemade jaffa cakes a try. They seemed weird, but they honestly tasted really good! Customize it with your preferred flavor! It's your home bake. You don't have to make an orange one if you don't want to. My household preferred the strawberry to the orange - you may feel differently. 

Next time on Bake the GBBO, I'm tackling upside down cake - and no, it's not pineapple!

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