Jaffa Cakes

There are lots of British food that are hard to come by in America. I'm a big Anglophile, having grown up in a country where Tesco and good old Marks and Spencer's were bigger names than the regular Safeway. One of my favourite British food is of course Marmite, which a lot of non-British people find revolting (left-over beer fermentation! like, grosssss). Another one of my favourite British delicacy, and which I have not seen anywhere yet since I've been in Seattle, is Jaffa Cakes.

There have been tons of discussion about what jaffa cakes really are - biscuits or cakes? Should they have butter or not? What's McVities' secret, etc, etc. So I went out in search of the perfect jaffa cake recipe and was surprised to see a dearth of jaffa cake recipes out in the virtual world. I did find this site though, that gave a really scanty baking guideline. I decided to take the recipe given in stride and concoct my own jaffery goodness. While the final product turned out pretty good (I think), I haven't yet mustered the tactic to having crispier edges with a soft middle. Oh well, this will have to do for now.

Jaffa Cakes
Makes 12

1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup pure granulated sugar (fine white sugar)
1/4 tsp baking powder
2 eggs
1 tsp grated orange peel
1/4 cup marmalade
1/2 cup semi-sweet dark chocolate chips

Hand whisk together eggs and sugar until they become fluffy and the whisk leaves a ribbon when it is lifted from the mixture.

Sieve in the flour, add in the orange peel and baking powder and whisk until just combined.

Spoon 1tbsp of batter into an unlined mini-muffin tin. Be sure to grease them with some vegetable based spray if the tin is not non-stick.

Bake at 400°F for 20 minutes until cakes are slightly browned and soft and spring to touch. When baked, remove from baking tin and let cool to room temperature.

Meanwhile, in a double boiler or using a bowl set in a saucepan of water, gently melt the chocolate chips over very low heat.

Put a dollop of marmalade on each cake and top with melted chocolate. Refrigerate for about 1/2 hour until chocolate sets. At this point, the jaffa cakes can be left at room temperature for up to 3 days.