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Meringue Girls 'Boom Ting Jaffa Cakes' and book review

Hello friends,

A few weeks ago I got my hands on the new baking book 'Everything Sweet' by Alex Hoffler and Stacey  O'Gorman, who are otherwise known as the Meringue Girls. This is their second book and as soon as I heard they were writing it I was excited. The first book they released was everything meringue which converted me from cupcakes to anything which could be topped with the white fluffy pillows of goodness, but this second book strays away from meringue into sweet treats. And it does not disappoint. It covers cakes, puddings gifts and some twists on old classics and overall is a very fun book to read. Each recipe has a paragraph at the top explaining the treat you are about to attempt and the fun and honesty of the girls shines through these. On top of great recipe and fun sparks of personality, the photography of the book is stunning - each picture is drool worthy and I would be a very happy baker if any of my bakes looked as good as they do in the book.



I would 100% say go out and buy this book - it is an inspiration for sure! I bought mine from Amazon, you can look with this link.

Today's recipe I have taken from this amazing book, and mine look nowhere near as good as the photos, but they taste friggin' amazing!

Ingredients:

For the cake base:

150g whole boiled oranges (approx 1 1/2)
2 medium eggs
95g caster sugar
95g ground almond
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/8 tsp bicarbonate of soda
60g marmalade

For the jelly:

1 x 135g pack of orange jelly
Zest of 1 orange

For the chocolate coating:

100g dark chocolate
1/2 tsp orange extract

Method:

Put the oranges in a pan, cover with cold water and boil until they are very soft (this took me about 40 minutes). Remove from the heat and allow to cool fully -chop into quarters, remove the pips and blitz in a food processor until smooth. 

Preheat the oven to 180C/ gas 6. Line a 12 hole muffin tin.

In a bowl, mix together the eggs, caster sugar, ground almonds and oranges. Fold in the baking powder and bicarbonate of soda. Spoon the mixture into the muffin tin and bake for 15 - 20 minutes until they are springy to touch. The cakes are quite sticky because of the oranges, so they may not look fully cooked when they are ready. Leave on a wire rack to cool completely.

Next make the jelly - follow the instructions on the jelly packet but add a little less water to make the jelly thicker. Add in the zest. Line the muffin tin you used earlier with clingfilm and pour in the jelly, to about 1cm thick - you don't want the jelly to be too thick otherwise the assembly will be hard. Place in the fridge until fully set.  

To assemble:

Spread marmalade on top of the cakes, and then pop out the jelly disks and place on top. Melt the chocolate in the microwave and allow to cool completely (you don't want to melt the jelly!). Place some paper under the wire rack your cakes are on and spoon over the chocolate. Fully coat the cakes, then place in the fridge to set hard.






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