Jaffa Cake cake

''Full moon, half moon, total eclipse''...everyone of a certain vintage will know what I'm talking about. No..not lunar waxings and wanings. No...not a rather more detailed version of the Bonnie Tyler classic Total Eclipse of the Heart. I'm taking cake. Jaffa cakes to be persise.

 Everyone will remember the ad with the teacher using a teaching moment as an excuse to stuff her face with the little rounds of cakey, orangey loveliness. EVERYONE loves jaffa cakes. EVERYONE. I've yet to meet someone who doesn't. Even people who don't like the combination of orange and chocolate somehow adore these cake creations. 

Even QI covered them in an episode, explaining why they are cake and not biscuit (FYI it's because they get hard when they're stale, unlike biscuits which get..for want of a better word..flaccid). 

They're a work of baking genius. The proportions are just right. Any more chocolate and it would swamp the base. Any more tangy orangy jelly and it would be too bitter, any more base, and it would be too dry. 

And everyone has their own way of eating Jaffa Cakes. You could be the type that pulls off the chocolate painstakingly, even when it cracks into tiny little shards. Then peels off the orange jelly layer and eats that. And finally eats the base, or dunks it into tea. You could be the person who eats the whole thing in one go. You could be the dipper, the one who dunks it into tea and lets the chocolate melt slightly before eating it. You could be the ''eclipser'' - the one who does it like in the ad ( it was a lunch time craze in our school for anyone who brought jaffa cakes - incidentally, those little snake packs were the bomb, especially if you were lucky enough to get the extra one they sometimes snuck into them). 

They are viciously addictive though. Because they're so light and small, you think an extra one won't hurt. Except then you find yourself crying into the empty box, because low and behold, you've eaten the entire package. I also think they bring out the worst in people, no one likes to share jaffa cakes. You're always worried that the other person will get more than you. 

Hm.
Anyway, I would exactly have the patience to make jaffa cakes for everyday occasions, but you cannot deny that the combination of orange and chocolate is a good one ( it was always one of my favourites in the tin of Roses). So instead of fiddling around with cutters and measuring tapes, I decided to combine the sticky gooiness of the orange layer, the decadent richness of the chocolate layer and the soft cumbliness of the base layer in another way. In an actual cake. Well, a loaf to be more exact.

This Jaffa drizzle cake is perfect for sharing and for when one small jaffa cake wouldn't do the trick. It keeps surprisingly well, doesn't dry out and is lovely with a cup of tea or coffee or as a dessert served sliced with vanilla ice cream. 

you will need:
140g butter softened 
200g self raising flour
1.5 tsp baking powder
 200g caster sugar
3 large eggs
6tbsp milk
finely grated zest of one orange

To finish:
juice of half an orange
50g caster sugar
50g dark chocolate

Method:
1. Heat oven to gas 4/ 180C. 
2. Butter and line a 1.2 lt loaf tin (or use liners)
3. Put all the cake ingredients into a large bowl and beat with a hand beater until liight and fluffy (about 5 mins)

 Pour into the tin

4. Bake for 40-50 mins until golden brown and a squewer comes out clean.

5. Heat the orange juice and sugar in a small saucepan, stirring until the sugar dissolves.

6. When the cake is cooked, remove it from the oven and spoon over the orange mix. Leave to cool in the tin and then remove and cool completely on a wire rack.
7. Break up the chocolate and melt in a bowl over a saucepan of simmering water. 
8. Drizzle over the cake and leave to set. 

EAT!