Strawberry ‘Jaffa Cakes’

I baked these ageeeesss ago but I never got round to posting the recipe. I came across a few recipes for jaffa cakes such as this one from the BBC. It seems it's quite the thing now to try to recreate our favourite shop-bought cakes and biscuits, so I thought I'd give it a go. Partly because I wanted to try something different and also because I had no orange jelly in the house, I decided to change the orange flavour for strawberry instead. Chocolate and strawberry is always a good combination, and it doesn't fail in this situation either :).

2oz/ 50g caster sugar

2oz/50g plain flour

2 eggs

½ pack strawberry pre-packaged jelly cubes

4oz/100g dark chocolate

1) Preheat oven to 180°C/350F/ Gas 4. Cut out 12 little circles of grease-proof paper and use to line a 12 hole muffin tin.

2) Set a heat-proof bowl over a pan of just simmering water, ensuring the bowl does not touch the surface of the water. Whisk the eggs and caster sugar together until the mixture has thickened and doubled in volume (it is much easier to use an electric hand-whisk for this).

3) Take the bowl off the heat. Sieve and fold one tablespoon of flour into the batter at a time, being careful not to knock the air out too much.

4) Put one tablespoon of the batter into each muffin hole and bake for about 8-10 minutes, until golden brown and springy to the touch. Take out of the muffin tin and allow to cool.

5) Make up the jelly, reducing the amount of water required to make half the amount of jelly that a full packet would make. Line a baking tray with cling film and pour in the jelly until it reaches a depth of about 1cm. Allow to cool completely before placing in the fridge to set.

6) Melt the chocolate and set aside to cool. Use a cookie cutter smaller than the circumference of the sponges to cut circles of jelly. Place one circle of jelly onto each sponge and place on a wire rack. Spoon each cake with the chocolate, smooth to neaten up a bit and allow the chocolate to drip off the cakes (it’s a good idea to place a sheet of tin foil or cling film under the wire rack before you do this!) Allow to set and devour when necessary.