Faffa Cakes: a Home-Made Variation on Jaffa-Cake

The closer we get to Father's day, the more apparent it becomes that if there is a myriad of lovely baking creations on offer for mums, there are far less so for dads.

 

When Pebble Soup was asked to take a look at Baking Mad delicious fathers day cakes in order to re-create one of the site recipe, I jumped at the idea. Not only because Baking Mad website is one of the little darling of the foodie blogosphere but also because there have fabulous recipes and some great father's day ideas.

 

As always, I got slightly side-tracked and ended up marvelling at the Jaffa Cakes page. 

It reminded me of a recent event where there were giant jaffa cakes displayed. My understanding is that these re-sized creations are hitting the shelves now and judging by the reactions at the event they might get very trendy.

 

But back to the task at hand, I am aiming for something trendy but with a retro-feel. Preferably something chocolaty since all the dads I talked to did put chocolate at the top of their cake wish-list. Easy to make as this is something which is going to involve kids cooking and last but not least a bake which could be tailor-made.

Based on the Baking Mad recipe, I was going to make my own Faffa Cake, Jaffa for Fathers.

Tips:

The cake base is a genoise which means that the eggs and the sugar are beaten together until the magical "ribbon stage" is reached. My tip is to use an electrical whisk. The ribbon stage is reached when lifting the whisk and moving it around, a trail will be left and the mixure looks a lot like meringue.

Then there is jelly, remember: fridge time, plan a little bit ahead. It also has to be fairly firm otherwise it will wobble too much and will be impossible to work with. Therefore no more than 200ml of water, less if you can get away with it and certainly not more than 1cm high in the container. Once you know this, your Faffa Cakes will fabulous.

Winks

There is nothing to stop you using different different coloured chocolate buttons they come in orange, yellow, blue, green, pink and lilac and match the jelly flavour.

For weight conscious dads, this recipe is low calorie,  here is the orignal Baking Mad Low calorie Jaffa cake and below is my variation.

                      

Faffa Cakes

 Ingredients

2	Free Range Eggs
25 grams	Granulated Sugar
50 grams	Plain White Flour
1 sachet	Orange Jelly Sugar free
1 paquet	Orange coloured chocolate buttons

 

Method

Preheat the oven to 180°C/fan oven 160°C, 350°F/Gas 4. Lightly grease 6 hole muffin tin.

 

Prepare a genoise base for the cakes using a bain-marie: place the eggs and sugar into a large bowl suspended over a pan of simmering water (do not allow the base of the bowl to touch the water). Whisk continuously for 4-5 minutes, or until the mixture is pale, fluffy and leaves a trail when the whisk is removed. A

 

Add the flour, beating continuously, until a thick, smooth batter forms. Half-fill each muffin tin with the cake mix. Bake the cakes for 8-10 minutes, or until pale golden-brown and cooked through.

 

Remove from the oven and set the cakes aside, still in their tray, until cool. They may sink a little. Remove the cakes from the tins.

 

Make the Jelly according to the instructions on the packet only halve the water content and pour into a shallow tray to form a 1 cm layer of jelly. When the jelly is set use a cup to cut small discs. smaller than the cake and transfer on the top of each cake.

 

Melt the chocolate buttons on a bain-marie, leave it to cool otherwise you are going to melt the jelly and drizzle over the cakes. In the fridge (or the freezer if you are in a hurry) till the chocolate is set.

 

disclaimer: thank you to Baking Mad for giving me the opportunity to use one of their recipe. This post is sponsored, words and opinions are my own.