How to Make Scrummy Jaffa Cakes

Making Jaffa Cakes today with Elise, who is nearly 4, was a bit of a challenge. It's a bit fiddly, a bit gooey and it didn't help that she had a minor toddler-meltdown in the midst of cooking. But that's life living with a toddler. :)

Jaffa Cakes happen to be Ross' favourite. I personally am not a fan of the orange-chocolate combo (give me a Snickers any day of the week) but there you are. I'm sure he'll enjoy them! And so will Elise when she's finished having her wobbly.

Jaffa Cakes have three layers: a soft spongy cake base, orange jelly and a chocolate topping to add some much needed (additional) sugar. I used a recipe from the BBC Food website (by Simon Rimmer) so here's his process and this recipe will make 24 bite sized jaffa cakes:

For the jelly:

• 2 x 135g packet orange jelly (chop it up if it is solid)
• 2 tbsp orange marmalade
• 250ml boiling water (you don't need to use any cool water in this recipe)

For the cake base:

• 4 eggs
• 100g caster sugar
• 100g plain flour (sieved)

For the splendid choccie topping:

• 400g 70% cocoa best quality chocolate (I always use 'proper' Lindt chocolate, never 'cooking' chocolate as, quite frankly, it tastes disgusting)

Method:

1. Oven on at 180C.

2. Put the marmalade and jelly in a bowl. Add the hot water and stir for a few minutes until everything has dissolved.

3. Pour the hot jelly mixture into a thin baking tray. You want the jelly to be about 0.5cm thick. Let it cool on the side, then put it in the fridge to set.

Step 3

4. Now we are going to make the cake bases. You'll need a mini-muffin cake tin which you'll need to grease lightly.

5. Put a saucepan on the stove with 1 inch of boiling water inside. Turn the stove off and let the water simmer by itself. Put a big Pyrex bowl on top and add the eggs and sugar. Beat with a wooden spoon til light and fluffy.

Step 5

6. Ask your wonderful assistant to measure out the flour (the photo below was taken moments before Elise had her tantrum). Sieve the flour into the same bowl as the eggs/sugar and beat it all together.

Step 6

7. Take the bowl off the saucepan and fill a cookie gun with the batter - remember to put your finger over the end so the batter doesn't ooze out! (You can just use a spoon if you prefer but the batter is quite runny so you might find it harder with a spoon).

Step 7

8. Fill your muffin tin (directly into the tin) so that they are each about 1/2 full (see my comments at the bottom on this... I think 1/3 full is actually plenty). Bake for 15 minutes until risen. Stick a knife in them to check they are cooked - if it comes out clean the cakes are ready to come out. Let them cool.

Step 8

9. Once the bases are cool, transfer them to mini paper cupcake cases.

10. Use a knife to slice small discs of jelly and put one on top of each of your cooled cake bases.

Step 10

11. Pop the cake bases back into the mini muffin tin to help them keep their shape. In a bowl, break the chocolate into pieces and put the bowl in some very warm water to melt. Stir until smooth and glossy.

12. Drizzle the warm chocolate over the orange jelly discs - it makes quite an exquisite mess when your toddler is helping - and pop the tray in the fridge for your Jaffas to set.

Step 12

I'd love to have added a photo of Ross enjoying his jaffa cake... but he snaffled one when I was asleep and I never managed to get a photo.

He did come back with some (constructive) feedback though... apparently the cake bases were too thick. I tried one myself and agreed... so a big tip from today's cooking experiment: to fill only 1/3 of each muffin with cake batter, instead of 1/2. It will make for a lighter, more enjoyable Jaffa Cake!


Love and hugs
Rebecca and Elise xx

Making Scones - A British Treat for UN Day!

'Delicious' is the word. I LOVE scones with jam. :)

It is the UN Day Celebration tomorrow at playschool and so I've opted to make some scones. I had wanted to try and make Malt Loaf - another British treat - but hunting through the shops of Singapore, I couldn't find   malt extract ANYWHERE... so I gave up.

We followed Delia Smith's recipe for scones in her How to Cook 2 book. The recipe made 14 quite big scones.

Ingredients:

• 450g Self raising flour
• 80g Caster sugar
• 150g Butter (melted to room temp)
• Delia suggests a pinch of salt (I left this out)
• 2 eggs
• 6 tablespoons of milk
• Handful of raisins

What to do:

1. Oven on at 220C. Sieve flour into a big bowl and add the butter.

2. Rub the butter into the flour so that it resembles crumbs and then add the sugar.

Step 2

3. Whisk the eggs and milk together with a fork and then add to the flour mixture. Use a palette knife to mix the dough together. It if looks a bit dry just add a tiny bit more milk until you have a soft, but not sticky, dough. Delia uses buttermilk but to honest I don't know what the difference is... and just used skim milk. It works just as well.

4. Elise and I divided the mixture into two. We rolled out the first half of dough, to about 2cm thick, and then used a circular cutter to make a scone. Repeat until half the dough is done.

Step 4

5. With the second half, we added raisins. Why not? So now we will have 7 plain and 7 raisin scones :)

Step 5

6. Put all your scones on a non-stick baking sheet, baste with a little extra milk using a brush and bake for 25 minutes, on a high shelf, until golden brown.

7. Leave them to cool, cut them in half and serve with strawberry jam (and cream if you like cream)!

Here's Elise: the victor with her spoils:... YUM!

Happy UN Day!

Love and hugs
Rebecca and Elise x

Princess Blueberry Muffins

Arrgh! The dreaded haze has hit Singapore and after 5 weeks of the stuff lingering about all the parents and all the children are going totally loopy. It's hot and the air is orange and it smells of burning tyres.

Outdoor play is off limits and Elise and I are indoors far, far too much right now. But in some ways it's cool because it means we can come up with new ideas to keep ourselves entertained at home. And what better way to spend our time than to bake??

Elise really wanted to make something 'princessy' so we made Princess Muffins! Here she is with the finished result... one has a foam castle stuck in it and the other, a foam princess (obviously those bits weren't edible)!

We followed Mary Berry's recipe for blueberry muffins (from her book The New Cook), which I really like because it uses very little sugar and the finished muffins freeze really well. Always handy to have some yummy homemade treats in the freezer!

To be honest most of her recipes are really easy to follow and I find that if I am hunting for a recipe, I often will find it in this book!

Here are the ingredients you'll need:

- 2 large eggs
- 85g caster sugar
- 225ml milk
- 100g butter (melted and cooled)
- 1 tsp vanilla essence
- zest of 1 lemon
- 280g self raising flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- a punnet of (fresh or frozen) blueberries (2-3 big handfuls)

1. Set your oven at 200C.

2. Mix the wet ingredients together then sieve in the dry ones. Use a wooden spoon - the lumpier your batter the better:

3. Gently stir in your blueberries. Try not to eat too many!

4. Pour the batter into 12 cupcake cases (within in a cupcake tin) as demonstrated by my nimble assistant:

5. Bake for 25 minutes or until light brown. The muffins will have risen and the tops will be cracking. Take them out of the tin and leave to cool on the side.

6. Gobble them up whilst having a Princess Tea Party!

Love and hugs,
Rebecca and Elise x

Dim Sum

No Asian experience is complete without enjoying dim sum for lunch every so often!

Elise loves char sui bau (light steamed pork buns)... here she is tucking into some!

September 2015 in Crystal Jade, Vivocity, Singapore

We are also having some garlic spinach, long bau and bbq pork sesame buns... delish!

Love and hugs
Rebecca and Elise