Like most of the country, I am an avid watcher of the Great British Bake Off. A hobby baker myself, I enjoy seeing what the contestants create but I’ve never been brave enough to have a go at the challenges myself. As it’s National Baking Week, I thought I’d take on one of the dreaded technical challenges: Mary Berry’s Jaffa Cakes. I didn’t give myself a time limit because I wanted something edible at the end and didn’t want to cry over baking, and also I don’t have access to all the beautiful equipment they have in the tent.
Ingredients:
For the jelly:
– 135g packet orange jelly
– finely grated zest of 1 small orange
– 150ml boiling water
For the sponge:
– unsalted butter, for greasing
-2 large eggs
– 50g caster sugar
– 50g self raising flour, sifted
For the topping:
– 180g plain chocolate, 46% cocoa solids (just fyi, Sainsbury’s basic dark chocolate is 44% and seemed to work well enough)
The method:
1 . To make the jelly for the centre, break apart the jelly cubes and put them in a bowl. Pour in the boiling water and stir until the jelly is completely dissolved – I put mine in the microwave after a while because it was cooling down before the cubes had melted. Add the orange zest (try using a brush to get the zest out of the grater), then pour into a shallow 30cm x 20cm tray – my tray was slightly too big so I improvised and made it smaller with some greaseproof paper around the edges. Chill in the fridge for 1 hour until set.
2. Once the jelly’s in the fridge, pre-heat the oven to 180C/Fan160C/Gas 4 and grease a 12 hole, shallow bun tin with butter. I only have a 6-hole tin so I made do with that. Whisk together the sugar and eggs for 4 – 5 minutes (longer if you’re whisking by hand, sorry) until pale and fluffy, then gently fold in the flour. I don’t normally bother sieving flour but I’d recommend doing it with this, otherwise it could end up quite lumpy.
3. Mary’s recipe says to ‘fill each well in the bun tin three quarters full with the cake batter’. I put a tablespoon of mixture in each well and only managed to make 11 cakes – maybe my cupcake tin is deeper than a bun tin, I don’t know. Bake the cakes for 7-9 minutes, until they’ve risen and the tops spring back when lightly pressed with a finger. Mine didn’t rise as much as I’d hoped – I think they would’ve been better if I’d had an electric whisk to get the egg and sugar mix really fluffy. Remove the cakes from the oven and leave them to cool in the tray for a few minutes and then move to a cooling rack (or upside-down cooking tray if you’re baking like a true student). If you’ve got a small tin like I had, get the next batch in as soon as possible before the mixture loses the air you whisked in.
4 . While the sponges are cooling, break the chocolate into pieces and put them into a bowl set over a pan of gently simmering water – make sure the bowl doesn’t touch the water or the chocolate will burn. Stir until it’s melted then remove the bowl from the heat and leave the chocolate to cool & thicken.
5. Take the jelly out of the fridge and carefully turn it out onto a sheet of non-stick baking parchment. Cut out 12 discs using a cutter slightly smaller than the top of the sponges. Place one jelly disc on top of each sponge.
6 . Spoon the chocolate over the jelly discs and sponges and leave to set slightly. My mistake was starting this step when the chocolate was still too warm, so it melted the first jelly disc. Leave it until it’s still runny but almost cool, then spoon some into the middle of each disc and spread it carefully to the edges of the sponge, making sure all the jelly is covered. Leave the chocolate to set a bit, then use a fork to create a criss-cross pattern on top of the chocolate. Leave to set completely, then enjoy!
I was quite pleased with my efforts in the end. They weren’t the neatest thing I’ve ever seen, but looking back at the show I don’t think I’d have totally disgraced myself if I’d been a contestant. Obviously Paul and Mary wouldn’t have been impressed by the fact that I only produced 10 jaffa cakes (I ate one of the sponges without adding jelly or chocolate to see what it was like, oops). I definitely want to have another go at these when I’m at home with my lovely electric whisk because my sponges were a bit flat, but overall this technical challenge recipe was more fun than stressful.!
Why not challenge your flatmates/housemates to a jaffa cake bake off for National Baking Week?!