Making the most of the delicious combination of chocolate and orange, these cakes are easy-to-make and fun for kids of all ages.
Ingredients (makes 8 buns/cup cakes – multiply up as you need! Muffins also an option…)
- 100 g self-raising flour
- 100 g butter/margarine
- 100 g caster sugar
- 2 eggs
- 2 tsp baking powder
- A packet of Jaffa Cakes (non-UK-based readers, I will return to this!)
For decoration
- 75 g butter/margarine
- 150 g icing sugar
- Orange food colouring
- Chocolate Matchsticks (once again, non-UK-based readers, I will say more about this later…)
- Writing icing
A note on ingredients
A key ingredient for this recipe are Jaffa Cakes, a type of biscuit/cookie-sized cake sold here in the UK. I’m not sure about their availability elsewhere (I’m sure you’ll let me know!). However, I imagine there’s an equivalent wherever you live. They have a cake base, topped with a layer of orange jelly and dark chocolate. This picture will give you the idea:
For the antennae I used orange-flavoured Matchsticks, which are widely-available chocolate sticks here in the UK. Again, I’m sure there’s an equivalent wherever you are, or you can always use liquorice! Here’s a picture of the Matchsticks:
Method
Pre-heat your oven to 150 degrees C. Put your fairy cake/bun/cup cake cases (whatever you prefer to call them!) in your tray.
Cream the butter and sugar together. Add the eggs, flour and baking powder. Stir until you have a smooth mixture.
Put a spoonful of the mixture into each cake case. Make sure the bottom of the case is completely covered. Pop a Jaffa Cake on top. Cover the Jaffa Cake with another spoonful of mixture. I experimented, and it turns out it’s best to place the Jaffa Cakes chocolate side up! The following picture shows both options 🙂
Bake the cakes until golden brown and springy to touch. This should take about 25-30 minutes. They need longer at a lower temperature to allow the mixture to cook around the chocolate in the centre without burning the top.
You may decide that muffins are better. I think I’ll use muffin cases next time I make these to prevent over-filling/rising. As seen in Exhibit A:
If you’re wondering, this is what the inside of the cakes looks like:
Decoration
Blend together the butter and icing sugar to make your buttercream icing/frosting. Add as much orange food colouring as you want. I had to add more than I thought I would just to get a subtle, pale orange:
I then piped swirls of the buttercream onto the top of the cakes. As you can see from the following picture, I covered some entirely, and others I just did a little in the centre.
Cut the Jaffa Cakes in half and stick the halves into the icing to make the wings. Cut pieces of Matchstick for the antennae. Use writing icing (shop-bought in tubes – cheat!) to add additional decorations to the wings and antenna (the green and blue blobs and swirls). You could stick on Smarties or M&Ms… I’m sure you’ll come up with some far more imaginative ideas than I did!
And that’s it! They’re delicious, cute and easier to make than the length of this post might suggest!
Give them a try and let me know how it goes! 🙂
And if you’re not a fan of choc-orange, you can also check out my recipe for traditional butterfly buns/cupcakes.
Art and Soul 
Now you have me hungry! Hmm, I might make my brother make these, he loves to bake…
LikeLiked by 1 person
They are delicious. And I imagine they’ll taste even better if you can get someone else to make them for you! 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
Exactly! 😉
LikeLike
Lovely cakes, Claire! I like your decorating skills. 🙂 Oh you’re going to laugh, but when we visit my husband’s family in London, we stock up on Jaffa Cakes, ha ha. One Christmas, they had this long, long box with funny saying written on it, and inside there were something like four or five normal-sized packages of Jaffa Cakes. I think perhaps scarcity makes us horde them or even think they taste better than they do? ha ha
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you!
They sell those long tubes at Christmas and they’re very tempting!
I went through a phase at university when I was semi-addicted to them, so I can sympathize with the hoarding! They are strangely moreish…
LikeLiked by 1 person
Ha ha, phew, I’m glad it’s not just us. 😉
LikeLiked by 1 person
Wow amazing!i have to make these!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you! So easy to make too 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
they are so adorable, my 23 year old said it’s a must try!!
LikeLiked by 1 person
I like how you decorated these! 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you! Surprisingly easy and once I finished I came up with lots of other ways I could have made them prettier (mostly by adding additional sweets…). 🙂
LikeLike
They look so good! I’ll have to run to the bakery today! 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
Pingback: WWW Wednesday 7th October 2015 | Art and Soul
OMG!!!! I have had this in my inbox since you published it. I wish I had seen it sooner!!!! I have to try this, in fact I’m going to! Has https://robynchristi.wordpress.com/ seen this???
LikeLiked by 2 people
It’s so easy. If you have a food mixer you can just chuck all the ingredients in and blend. The fiddliest bit is spooning the mixture into the cases. If you try it, let me know 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
I don’t have a mixer, but it doesn’t stop me baking. I will try it tonight if I can! 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
I don’t have one either but I’m hoping to get one for Christmas. Then there’ll be no stopping me! 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
lol… nothing like a house thing for a Christmas present eh?
They are such a good idea, I’m trying to think of what else you could do this with, but how could you top a jaffa cake?
LikeLiked by 1 person
Omg these look amazing !!
LikeLiked by 2 people
I know – I wanted to make them at the weekend and I bought two boxes of family pack Jaffa Cakes to do it abut I never got the chance. With Jaffa Cakes being what they are I fear they won’t last until I can make them… Do you think I should have bought more packs?
LikeLiked by 1 person
You can never have too many in the cupboard. In case of emergencies 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
I should have double up shouldn’t I?!?
BTW – I made your cookies at the weekend (see my post on baking Sunday) they were delic!
LikeLiked by 1 person
I did see that! I’m glad they were tasty. I think I needed to add more chocolate (you can never have enough)…
LikeLiked by 1 person
LOTS more chocolate was needed. You do t need much dough, i tried using lots, it wasn’t necessary
LikeLiked by 1 person
Pingback: Recipe | Chocolate Butterfly Cakes | Art and Soul
Pingback: Recipe | Giant choux buns filled with whipped cream and topped with melted Terry’s chocolate orange | Art and Soul
Pingback: Recipe | Shredded Wheat chocolate nests – with golden syrup and mini eggs! | Art and Soul
Pingback: Recipe | Ice cream cone cakes | Art and Soul
gotta say- these look stunning!
LikeLiked by 1 person
They were really nice. And so easy to make. Those nice people who make Jaffa Cakes do a lot of the work for you. And then there’s fun to be had with the coloured icing 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
haha they are nice people 😉 and that’s rather convenient 🙂 well that’s always fun!!
LikeLiked by 1 person