Jaffa Cupcakes

A couple of weeks ago we met some friends for afternoon tea at Cornwall Park. I made these jaffa cupcakes to take. It’s quite a long story as to how I decided to make jaffa cupcakes, but here goes……

A few weeks ago I decided to make fudge for some gifts. I wanted to use a recipe from a Jo Seagar cook book which involved melting marshmallows, adding melted chocolate and other things. Instead of going to the supermarket, I stopped at the service station on the way home to buy the marshmallows. There I spotted a bag of orange flavoured M & Ms which cutely only have white or orange candy coatings. I thought they would be good add ins to the fudge to make it look a bit more decorative.

Well, the fudge was a disaster! I melted the marshmallows and butter in the microwave for he advised amount of time, but it must have been a bit long and overheated the marshmallow mixture, as when I added the chocolate the whole things seized. Well, I was determined that roughly $10 worth of ingredients wasn’t going into the bin, so I beat the fudge like crazy until it sort of came together. I didn’t want to waste my m & ms by putting them into sub-standard fudge (which actually ended up tasting ok in the end anyway) so I saved them for another day.

So, when I was deciding what cupcakes to make to our picnic afternoon tea, I thought I would use the orange and white m & ms to decorate them with. I had some lovely Kerikeri oranges in the fruit bowl after our trip to the bay of islands and thought Jaffa Cupcakes would be perfect. However, in the end I decided not to decorate them with the orange M & Ms after all – they are still stashed in my pantry. Instead I topped the cakes with whipped cream (I still reckon this is the best cupcake topping as it pipes like a dream and I don’t find it too sweet) and sprinkled them with orange coloured sugar. Simple but delicious.



Jaffa Cupcakes

100g butter
2/3 c sugar
2 large eggs
3 tbsp cocoa dissolved in 3 tbsp hot water
Zest of one orange
3 tsbp freshly squeezed orange juice
2/3 c self raising flour

• Cream butter and sugar, then beat in eggs, one at a time
• Beat in cocoa dissolved in water and orange zest
• Fold in remaining ingredients
• Spoon into cupcake cases ( I got 11 cupcakes) and bake at 180c for 17-20 minutes
• When cold top with chocolate icing made with orange juice instead of water or whipped cream